Ken Sanders Rare Books is a full service antiquarian bookshop in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. We carry an ever-changing
inventory of art, ephemera, maps, photography, and postcards in addition to a vast selection of used and rare books along with a few new books. We also
purchase and appraise books.
New arrivals and acquisitions are posted to the KSRB website first on Saturday mornings. The inventory will then be posted to the other sites we use abebooks.com, alibris.com, biblio.com, and amazon.com later in the following week.Our inventory is diverse, and our specialties include Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, B. Traven, Utah and the Mormons, Modern First Editions, Grand Canyon, Colorado River & Colorado Plateau, Western Americana, Native Americans, The Intermountain West, Southwest, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Wilderness & National Parks, Public Lands, the Environment, Explorations & Surveys, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and the Literary West.
THE PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH & EMMA HALE SMITH'S
FAMILY BIBLE
Ken Sanders Rare Books is pleased to announce its acquisition of the personal
family bible of the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, Jr. and his first wife,
Emma Hale Smith. It is being offered for sale for the first time in forty
years. This is the only known family bible of Joseph and Emma Smith and
contains important genealogy on the Smith family and their children not to be
found anywhere else. This is the sole original source material for this
genealogy. An almost identical bible, belonging to Hyrum Smith and his family
is in the possession of the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University
in Provo, Utah.
This bible is a unique artifact of 19th century LDS history and arguably the
rarest Mormon book, because of the Smith family provenance. By comparison,
there were 5,000 copies of the 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon
printed, which regularly sell between $45,000-$100,000. There are twenty-nine
known copies of the 'The Book of Commandments' of which the last known sale was
at $1.7 million dollars.
The rare one of a kind Joseph and Emma Smith bible will be on public display at
Ken Sanders Rare Books from August 2nd through August 4th during regular
business hours of 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, Together with the
Apocrypha: Translated out of the Original Tongues and with the Former
Translations Diligently Compared and Revised. Philadelphia: Charles H. Yost,
1831. 1010pp. Quarto [30 cm] Rebound in full calf with raised bands and a red
leather label on the backstrip. New pastedowns and endsheets. Title page in
facsimile. Housed in a black leather custom
clamshell. Tissue repairs throughout. Sporadic damp staining.
The Family Bible of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1804-1844) and Emma Hale Smith (1804-1879),
was undoubtedly purchased by the Prophet sometime after his move to Kirtland.
Ohio. The Family Bible of Hyrum and Jerusha Smith, is the same edition as this
Bible. We presume that they were purchased at the same time. Hyrum's Family
Bible is housed at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.
Between the Old and New Testament is a section titled 'Family Record' for
recording family genealogies. On the left side of page two of this section is
the handwriting of Joseph Smith, Jr. (according to noted Joseph Smith scholar,
Dean C. Jesse) recording members of his family. On the facing page is the
handwriting of Emma Hale Smith recording the names of the Smith children,
including the correct date of birth and
death of "The 7th son" A separate page was used to record family
deaths.
This book is not an icon or religious relic; instead this is an historical
artifact from another time and place that tell us something about the Prophet
Joseph Smith and Emma in their own hands and is a direct link between the
founder of Mormonism and the contemporary LDS Church. This volume represents
the only correct manuscript material in regards to the Smith children, and also
in many ways represents the birth certificates of the Prophet's children.
Complete provenance available to serious inquiries.
$1,500,000.00
An article about the Bible was published in the January 1984 issue of Ensign.
To read the article, click here: Smith Family Bible
Ken Sanders Featured on StoryCorps Blog
Read the recent blog post featuring Ken Sanders and
Scott Carrier.
The Name of the Thief: A Portrait of John Charles Gilkey - By Ken Sanders
During my four-year tenure as security chair for the ABAA, I have been blessed and cursed with a plethora of book thieves, would-be book thieves, fraudsters, forgers, conmen, grifters, and all manner and kind of other predators within the book trade. My tenure has coincided with the rapid rise of Internet commerce and the swift rise to e-auction dominance of eBay. With this increase in cyber commerce, a Wild West frontier mentality has also come to the fore; the gunslingers and cattle rustlers of the Old West have been supplanted by the forgers and credit card thieves of the New West. Nineteenth-century hookers have become twenty-first-century hackers, and the poker players of old have been transformed into electronic auctioneers. This is a tale of a book thief, one of many I have acquired during several years spent in the underbelly of the rare book world. This parable, a rare tale of an unusual thief, tells of one of the few who were apprehended. Some days I feel like a modern-day Jonah, other days more like Pinocchio, swallowed whole by an unseen beast.
Read the full article
John Varah Long: Forgotten Utah Writer and Pioneer - By Ken Sanders and
Will Bagley
John Varah Long
(September 28, 1826-April 14, 1869) was born at Wickersley, Yorkshire, England,
and became a rising star in early Utah's history. Long was baptized into the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, or Mormon) on November 5,
1843 at the age of seventeen. Five years later, he was ordained an Elder. After
a successful stint as president of the British Sheffield Mission, John Varah
Long and his first wife, Eleanor Oates, sailed for America in 1854 with their
two sons and five-year-old daughter aboard the ship Windermere with the assistance of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund.
One son died at sea; the second died at New Orleans.
In Utah, John V.
Long rose quickly through the ranks of the both the territorial government and
the LDS Church. Although he was unable to sign his name when he apprenticed as
a rasp and file maker at age fourteen, Long became a skilled clerk, court
reporter, and poet. In Utah he worked as a reporter and associate editor of the
Deseret News, attorney, dentist,
surveyor, agronomist, and lecturer. He was appointed a captain in the Nauvoo
Legion and was promoted to major in the Legion's topographical engineers in
1857. He served as a regent of the University of Deseret (now the University of
Utah) and as a member of the Territorial Assembly.
Read the full article
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![356pp. Octavo [23.5 cm] Black cloth with silver stamped title on front board and backstrip. Fine/Fine. New book with no flaws.](/ksanders/images/items/120x500/14193.jpg "356pp. Octavo [23.5 cm] Black cloth with silver stamped title on front board and backstrip. Fine/Fine. New book with no flaws.")
The Monkey Wrench Gang.
![160pp. Vegisemo-Quarto (24mo) [12 cm] Full leather. Fine. Housed in a custom clamshell that also includes a separately bound foreword by Peter Crawley. This edition is limited to 29 lettered copies. This edition is hand-sewn and bound using techniques consistent with historical styles. The deluxe edition also includes two letterpress printed title page variants for framing or display, as well as space for a leaf.](/ksanders/images/items/120x500/16946.jpg "160pp. Vegisemo-Quarto (24mo) [12 cm] Full leather. Fine. Housed in a custom clamshell that also includes a separately bound foreword by Peter Crawley. This edition is limited to 29 lettered copies. This edition is hand-sewn and bound using techniques consistent with historical styles. The deluxe edition also includes two letterpress printed title page variants for framing or display, as well as space for a leaf.")
A Book of Commandments, for the Government of the Church of Christ, Organized According to Law, on the 6th of April, 1830.
