Monuments of Publishing
By Davis Bitton

As a graduate student at Princeton University, I became aware of a project being conducted behind closed doors in the Firestone Library.  It was the preparation and publication of the papers of Thomas Jefferson.

Under the direction of general editor Julian Boyd, sub-editors of individual volumes, secretaries, and interns went about their task day after day.  As completed, the volumes were published.  Mainly purchased by research libraries at universities, and a few subscribers who had the interest and the financial resources, this set took its place on the bookshelves.  Even in a sturdy, handsome format, three or four volumes might not have looked too impressive, but the work steadily expanded.  Some thirty-one volumes now make up the set, taking us only to the year 1800. 

Four previous sets of Jefferson's writings had already appeared.  Why invest the time and resources to do it again?  As a student in Wesley Frank Craven's seminar in American colonial history, I joined about a dozen others to visit the Jefferson project.  Julian Boyd showed us the way it was organized, explained what they were doing, and answered questions.

For one thing, he said, many additional works by Jefferson, mainly letters, had come to light.   Jefferson's official documents and some of his speeches had been published during his own lifetime, but it was appropriate to reproduce them in a complete edition of his works.  In some instances, handwritten, corrected drafts survived and could be compared to the printed version.

Also, editorial standards had changed.  If you are the editor preparing a letter or a diary for publication, how do you handle misspellings, crossed out words, insertions, and abbreviations?  For ease of reading, do you insert periods and commas where they are required by our standards?  Editorial procedures varied widely in the past, but Julian Boyd and others did much to standardize them.  At the very least, all would agree, editors should explain what they were doing.

It was not uncommon at the end of the eighteenth century and through much of the nineteenth for an editor to leave out sentences or paragraphs, make corrections, and even change pronouns.  Something originally written in the third person might appear in the first person.  Even if the earlier editor intended no harm, there is something misleading about playing fast and loose with the original documents.

Besides, when reading primary material, later users need help.  Persons mentioned in diaries and letters require identification.  Changes in usage need to be explained.  When an important scholarly study has been devoted to the subject, the reader should at least be apprized of its existence.  Appearing in introductions to volumes and sections, appendices, biographical registries, and countless footnotes, such supplementary information enable readers to understand the documents and put them into an intelligible context.

Boyd showed us the many filing cabinets and the neat vertical folders in which the Jefferson documents were kept.  Everything relevant to a given letter or speech was brought together.  These folders provided the basis for the editor or one of his assistants to prepare the copy, with any necessary annotations, that would be compiled in sequence and sent to the printer.  The earlier “highly selective and undependable” compilations would be replaced.

Think about it.  Whose writings deserve this kind of meticulous treatment?  Whose handwritten jottings deserve to be perpetuated?  Isn’t it sufficient to gather them in archives?  We simply cannot, even if we wanted to, publish everything in bound volumes. 

Here is a thought exercise.  You are given a generous salary with the assignment to publish all the papers produced by the presidential administration of Bill Clinton.  The sinecure might be enjoyable, but how realistic would be the assignment?  Think of each of the departments — State, Justice, Agriculture, Interior, and so on — and the enormous quantities of paperwork they create.  The Pentagon itself piles up mountains of paperwork.  Publish it all?  Forget it.

Yet some individuals are of such importance to their times and to later historical understanding that providing reliable compilations of their letters, speeches, and other documents seems justified.  In 1933, Congress established the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, which has provided funding not only for the Thomas Jefferson Papers, but also for more than thirty other editing projects.  I dont know how many similar ambitious projects have been launched and completed in other countries, but they are numerous.

All of which brings me to Mormon history.  Whose "complete works" deserve publication?  The answer is not obvious.   For most people, even including those who have been prominent, there is no reason to publish their surviving writings.  It is not entirely bad, perhaps, that much of human experience disappears down the memory hole.  In any case, it is inevitable.  But edited diaries of ordinary people as well as leaders can add to our connection with the past as it was lived.  Publication online or on compact disk is another alternative, and we will probably see more of that.

What about someone of such obvious importance as Brigham Young?  As president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and then as president of the Church, he presided for thirty-three years.  So, you say, let’s publish his complete papers.

Not so fast.  The works by Brigham Young and addressed to him are staggering in quantity.  In addition to his church leadership, he was governor of Utah Territory and Superintendent of Indian Affairs.  Although some parts of it might be within the realm of possibility (his letters to his sons have been published and letters to Indian chiefs are under consideration), a comprehensive edition of the Brigham Young papers will not be lightly undertaken.

Meanwhile, of far greater importance to Latter-day Saint history than anyone else is Joseph Smith.  As first prophet of the restoration, he laid the foundation.  Yet his life was short, ending at about age thirty-eight and a half years.  Who can deny the need for a comprehensive, reliable edition of his works?

We have limped along for many years.  B.H. Roberts and others responsible for compiling the work known as Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, made a valuable contribution and helped make many sources available.  Yet the work is not immune from the limitations and missteps mentioned earlier for other attempts to publish collected works.

A great boon to serious students has been the patient editorial work of Dean C. Jessee, who published The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith and two volumes entitled The Papers of Joseph Smith.  In scrupulous attention to detail, annotation, and careful textual editing, these works superseded previous publications.

Now an ambitious project has been undertaken.  A team project, with different scholars assigned to each volume, The Joseph Smith Papers will include journals, correspondence, revelations, business documents, and court cases.  More than 4300 items are in the project's control file.  Recognizing both its importance and the high standards of editing it will maintain, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission has endorsed the project.  More than twenty-five volumes will eventually be published.

Under the general direction of Richard E. Turley, Jr., managing director of the Churchs Family History and Historical Department, scholars will work as a team in Salt Lake City.  According to press reports, there is a determination to complete and publish this work in a “timely” fashion, within about ten years.  That sounds to me like two or three volumes per year.

The average high school or college student may not consider The Joseph Smith Papers light reading, but future scholars will base their work on them.  In fact, many Latter-day Saints who love the Prophet will want to get close to his mind and heart through these volumes.  It is hard to disagree with Church Historian Marlin K. Jensen, who calls it “the most important Church history project of this generation.”