Millennial Star – A Motley Vision

Edward Tullidge’s attempts at starting a Mormon Literature

It is wonderful to come across completely new information on one subject when you are searching for information in a completely different area. In my case, I was looking for background on Edward Tullidge and why he was in New York City in 1866, and I discovered the Edward Tullidge who tried to create a Mormon literature in 1864. I also discovered that my impression of Tullidge, as an inconstant and unfaithful Church member involved in the Godbeite schism, was not a fair impression. And I came to the conclusion that we, in Mormon letters, need to give Edward Tullidge, the author, poet, playwright and editor, more attention when we look at Mormon literary history.

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A Short History of Mormon Publishing: The English Period

The second of seven posts and an introduction. See also Part I, Introduction

: Image via Wikipedia

The exodus of most of the Mormons in the United States to a part of “Upper California” (now Utah) starting in 1846 interrupted publishing by Mormons throughout that country. Of the Church’s three official publications, the Times and Seasons closed down that year, as did the New York Messenger (successor to the Prophet). This left the LDS Church, under the leadership of Brigham Young, with just one official publication, the Millennial Star, published in Manchester, England.

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A Short History of Mormon Publishing: The Formative Period

The first of seven posts, following an introduction posted last week.

Effectively, Mormonism begins with the publication of a book.

The publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830 gave the nascent Church content and direction–content in the form of a tangible object that could be delivered to investigators, and direction in the form of a stated goal to preach the gospel to all the world.[] Since religious and political tracts were already in widespread use in the U.S. (Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, for example), early members and missionaries knew the power of the written word. Continue reading “A Short History of Mormon Publishing: The Formative Period”

Is ‘Celestialized’ a Mormon word?

While working on a translation of Nephi Anderson‘s Added Upon earlier this week, I came across a passage where he uses the word Celestialized. Of course, I couldn’t find the word listed in my bilingual dictionary, and it occurred to me that this must be a fairly unique word–one that isn’t used very often outside of Mormonism.

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The Missionary Christmas

I recently prepared a Christmas package for my missionary son and hit upon the idea of searching past Ensign magazines for missionary Christmas stories to add to the package. I’m not sure if these stories are typical of other missionary Christmas stories, but I can say that the stories I found included two broad themes: stories of missionaries caroling (or giving other musical performances) and stories of missionaries overcoming loneliness. [I do believe there are other themes in these stories, I just didn’t come across them in my very limited search.] Continue reading “The Missionary Christmas”