The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, Upon Plates taken from the Plates of Nephi (Presentation copy to Wilford Woodruff Jr.)

Salt Lake City, UT: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1888. First Pulpit Edition. Leather bound. Very Good. 623pp. Quarto [25.5 cm] Black leather with gilt stamped titles and gilt and blind stamped decorative patterns on the spine and covers. All edges gilt. Rebacked with a large portion of the original spine laid over (original spine has a handful of cracks and a bit of discoloration). Floral endpapers, with areas of abrasion along the hinges which have been reinforced with plain gray cloth. Else, extremities moderately rubbed, underlying boards exposed at the fore-edge corners of the covers, minor darkening to the inside margins of pp. 276-277 and pp. 608-609, a tiny bit of ink staining to fore-edge margin of p. 404, and two small open tears to p. 541 along the fore-edge margin. Pages bright and free of markings. Complete. With the following presentation inscription on half title page: "Presented to / Wilford Woodruff Jr. / by his wife / Julia S. Woodruff." The "pulpit" edition of the Book of Mormon, the only large-sized edition of the Book of Mormon issued in the 19th century. Flake/Draper 625.

Wilford Woodruff Jr. (1840-1921) was the second child of Wilford Woodruff (fourth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and Phebe Whittemore Carter. Julia Spencer (1856-1895) was his second wife. He married Julia on May 25, 1879 in St. George, Washington County, Utah. In 1890, the year that this book was inscribed, Wilford Woodruff Jr.'s father ended the practice of plural marriage among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.