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Fawn McKay Brodie (1915-1981) No Man Knows My History (1945) 1945 Title-page 1976 Title-page Preface excerpt Contents Chapter 5 excerpt Appendix B excerpt Transcriber's comments |
Brodie's Refutation of the Spalding Claims | Dale Morgan Review
No Man Knows My History, copyright © 1945
by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
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NEW YORK Alfred A. Knopf 1945 |
No Man Knows My History, copyright © 1945
by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Revised second edition,
copyright © 1971 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
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knows my history The Life of JOSEPH SMITH THE MORMON PROPHET Second Edition, Rivised and Enlarged by FAWN M. BRODIE New York Alfred A. Knopf 1976 |
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[ vii ]
Since that moment of candor at least three-score writers have taken up the gauntlet. xxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xx xxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxx xxxxx xxxx xx xxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx x x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxx xx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxx x xxx xxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xx xx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xx xxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxx x xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xx xx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxx xx xxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xx xx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx |
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[ xiii ] Contents
419 APPENDIX B The Spaulding-Rigdon Theory 434 APPENDIX C The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith 466 BIBLIOGRAPHY 477 INDEX |
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[ 67 ]
THE BOOK OF M ORMON was a mutation in the evolution of American literature, a curious sport, at once sterile and potent. Although it bred no imitators outside Mormonism and was ignored by literary critics, it brought several hundred thousand immigrants to America in the nineteenth century. The twentieth century sees the distribution of 35,000 copies a year. For more than a hundred years missionaries have heralded it throughout the world as religious history second only to the Bible. have been affected, especially by its contribution to opening up one of our great frontiers. * aimless, and inconceivably absurd -- at once a parody of all American religious thought and something more than a parody, a disintegration. The estrus of a paranoiac projected it into a new Bible." * due to copyright restrictions on the text. |
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[ 83 ]
THE BOOK OF M ORMON was the catapult that flung Joseph Smith to a place in the sun. But it could not be responsible for his survival there. The book lives today because of the prophet, not he because of the book. For Joseph, writing was always the means to an end, never the end in itself, and the moment he had felt the brief warm glow of satisfaction at seeing his words in print, he turned to the serious business of organizing his church. There is a similar, and equally apocryphal story about Joseph Smith, which holds that he too boasted he would walk upon the water, but that he secretly built a plank bridge underneath the surface of the pond. The public demonstration was a notworthy success until he reached the middle, when, thanks to mischievous boys, instead of planks he trod on water and barely escaped drowning. Baseless though this story may be, it is none the less symbolic. xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx x xxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xx x xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx x xxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx x xx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xx xx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xx xxxx xx x xxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xx xx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xx xxxx xx x xxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xx x xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xx xx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xx xx xxxx xx x xxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx x xx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxx x identity. The promise of a white skin to the convert did not seem a genetic absurdity to a people who were being told in sober history books that the pigment of the red man in New England who had adopted the white man's way of life had actually become lighter than that of his savage brothers.* and chagrined" and never met with the Disciples in a general meeting afterward. and South Bainbridge who had recently acquitted him. When Rigdon returned with a transcript from the dockets of the two judges affirming his innocence, Joseph had a new revelation awaiting him. than any other man living. He was Brother Joseph's private counsellor and his most intimate friend and brother for some time after they met." |
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[ 98 ]
OHIO had seen prophets before. In 1812 Abel Sargent, who talked with angels and received revelation, toured the state with his twelve women apostles pretending to raise the dead and preaching the odd doctrine that if one were sufficiently holy one could live without food. due to copyright restrictions on the text. Then he coined the word "telestial" for a third kingdom, whose glory was that of the stars, to be peopled with those who had refused the law of God. than from the promptings of the Lord. Booth's letters in the Ohio Star caused widespread indignation against the prophet. on his face and hands.... due to copyright restrictions on the text.
Although Rigdon repeatedly urged a restoration, Joseph made only one effort to revive the Order after 1834. This was a greatly revised consecration program that he launched in Missouri in 1838. It collapsed at the end of the year... |
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[ 143 ]
THE past that Joseph had hoped to bury in New York now returned to plague him. He had made a vindictive enemy of Philastus Hurlbut, a handsome, ambitious convert whom he had excommunicated in June 1833 for "unchristian conduct with the ladies." In vengeful mood, Hurlbut began an investigation of the beginnings of the Mormon Church. widow in Massachusetts, he was directed by her back to eastern New York, where he located the manuscript in a trunk in the attic of an old farmhouse. Now to his bitter chagrin he found that the long chase had been vain; for while the romance did concern the ancestor of the Indians, its resemblance to the Book of Mormon ended there. None of the names found in one could be identified in the other; the many battles which each described showed not the slightest similarity with those of the other, and Spaulding's prose style, which aped the eighteenth-century British sentimental novelists, differed from the style of the Mormon Bible as much as Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded differed from the New Testament. * ... [Hurlbut] sold his manuscript for five hundred dollars to Howe, who printed the book Mormonism Unvailed under his own name... |
Chapters XI-XXVII have not been transcribed
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APPENDIX A DOCUMENTS ON THE EARLY LIFE OF JOSEPH SMITH I THE EARLIEST and most important account of Joseph Smith's money-digging is in the following court record, first unearthed in southern New York by Daniel S. Tuttle, Eposcopal Bishop of Salt Lake City, and published in the article on "Mormonism" in the New Schaff-Herzog Encylopedia of Religious Knowledge. * The trial was held before a justice of the peace in Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York, March 20, 1826: certain stone; that prisoner had looked for him sometimes, -- once to tell him about money buried on Bend Mountain in Pennsylvania, once for gold on Monument Hill, and once for a salt-spring, -- and that he positively knew that the prisoner could tell, and professed the art of seeing those valuable treasures through the medium of said stone: that he found the digging part at Bend and Monument Hill as prisoner represented it; that prisoner had looked through said stone for Deacon Attelon, for a mine -- did not exactly find it, but got a piece of ore, which resembled gold, he thinks; that prisoner had told by means of this stone where a Mr. Bacon had buried money; that he and prisoner had been in search of it; that prisoner said that it was in a certain root of a stump five feet from surface of the earth, and with it would be found a tail-feather; that said Stowel and prisoner thereupon commenced digging, found a tail-feather, but money was gone; that he supposed that money moved down; that prisoner did offer his services; that he never deceived him; that prisoner looked through stone, and described Josiah Stowel's house and out-houses while at Palmyra, at Simpson Stowel's, correctly; that he had told about a painted tree with a man's hand painted upon it, by means of said stone; that he had been in company with prisoner digging for gold, and had the most implicit faith in prisoner's skill. like a board or plank. Prisoner would not look again, pretending that he was alarmed the last time that he looked, on account of the circumstances relating to the trunk being buried came all fresh to his mind; that the last time that he looked, he discovered distinctly the two Indians who buried the trunk; that a quarrel ensued between them, and that one of said Indians was killed by the other, and thrown into the hole beside of the trunk, to guard it, as he supposed. Thompson says that he believes in the prisoner's professed skill; that the board which he struck his spade upon was probably the chest, but, on account of an enchantment, the trunk kept settling away from under them while digging; that, notwithstanding they continued constantly removing the dirt, yet the trunk kept about the same distance from them. Says prisoner said that it appeared to him that salt might be found at Bainbridge; and that he is certain that prisoner can divine things by means of said stone and hat; that, as evidence of fact, prisoner looked into his hat to tell him about some money witness lost sixteen years ago, and that he described the man that witness supposed had taken it, and disposition of money." |
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APPENDIX B THE SPAULDING-RIGDON THEORY THE SPAULDING-RIGDON theory of the authorship of the Book of Mormon is based on a heterogeneous assortment of letters and affidavits collected between 1833 and 1900. When heaped together without regard to chronology, as in Charles A. Shook's True Origin of the Book of Mormon, and without any consideration of the character of either Joseph Smith or Sidney Rigdon, they seem impressive. But the theory is based first of all on the untenable assumption that Joseph Smith had neither the wit nor the learning to write the Book of Mormon, and it disregards the fact that the style of the Book of Mormon is identical with that of the Mormon prophet's later writings, such as the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price, but is completely alien to the turgid rhetoric of Rigdon's sermons. and ex-preacher, who had hoped to publish it and solve his financial embarrassments. Hurlbut interviewed these people in August and September 1833. They told him that Spaulding, now deceased, had lived in Conneaut from 1809 to 1812, and that he had written a historical novel about the American aborigines from which he had occasionally read them extracts. Spaulding had moved to Pennsylvania, where he died in 1816. America. He represented them as an enlightened and warlike people. He had for many years contended that the aborigines of America were the descendants of some of the lost tribes of Israel, and this idea he carried out in the book in question. The lapse of time which has intervened, prevents my recollecting but few of the leading incidents of his writings; but the names of Nephi, and Lehi are yet fresh in my memory, as being the principal heroes of his tale. They were officers of the company which first came off from Jerusalem. He gave a particular account of their journey by land and sea, till they arrived in America, after which, disputes arose between the chiefs, which caused them to separate into different bands, one of which was called Lamanites and the other Nephites. Between these were recounted tremendous battles, which frequently covered the ground with the slain; and their being buried in large heaps was the cause of the numerous mounds in the country. Some of these people he represented as being very large. I have read the Book of Mormon, which has brought fresh to my recollection the writings of Solomon Spaulding; and I have no manner of doubt that the historical part of it, is the same that I read and heard read, more than twenty years ago. The old obsolete style, and the phrases of "and it came to pass," etc., are the same. I boarded and lodged in the family of said Spaulding for several months. I was soon introduced to the manuscripts of Spaulding, and perused them as often as I had leisure. He had written two or three books or pamphlets, on different subjects; but that which more particularly drew my attention, was one which he called the "Manuscript Found." From this he would frequently read some humorous passages to the company present. It purported to be the history of the first settlement of America, before discovered by Columbus. He brought them off from Jerusalem, under their leaders, detailing their travels by land and water, their manners, customs, laws, wars, etc. He said that he designed it as an historical novel.... I have recently examined the Book of Mormon, and find in it the writings of Solomon Spaulding, from beginning to end, but mixed up with Scripture and other religious matter, which I did not meet with in the "Manuscript Found." Many of the passages in the Mormon book are verbatim from Spaulding, and others in part. The names of Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, and in fact all the principal names are brought fresh to my recollection by the Gold Bible. When Spaulding divested his history of its fabulous names, by a verbal explanation, he landed his people near the Straits of Darien, which I am very confident he called Zarahemla. They were marched about the country for a length of time, in which great wars and great bloodshed ensued, he brought them across North America in a northeast direction. trace their journey from Jerusalem, by land and sea, till their arrival in America, give an account of their arts, sciences, civilization, wars and contentions. In this way, he would give a satisfactory account of all of the old mounds, so common to this country. During the time he was at my house, I read and heard read one hundred pages or more. Nephi and Lehi were by him represented as leading characters, when they first started for America. Their main object was to escape the judgments which they supposed were coming upon the old world. But no religious matter was introduced as I now recollect... When I heard the historical part of it [the Book of Mormon] related, I at once said it was the writings of old Solomon Spaulding. Soon after, I obtained the book, and on reading it, found much of it the same as Spaulding had written, more than twenty years before. that although five out of the eight had heard Spaulding's story only once, there was a surprising uniformity in the details they remembered after twenty-two years. Six recalled the names Nephi, Lamanite, etc.; six held that the manuscript described the Indians as descendants of the lost ten tribes; four mentioned that the great wars caused the erection of the Indian mounds; and four noted the ancient scriptural style. The very tightness with which Hurlbut here was implementing his theory rouses an immediate suspicion that he did a little judicious prompting. having made an error without admitting to a case of memory substitution which they did not themselves recognize. manuscript was the true source of the Book of Mormon, and labored indefatigably to prove it. Before examining their evidence, it should be noted that if, as seems most likely, there was only one Spaulding manuscript, there were certain similarities between it and the Book of Mormon which, though not sufficient to justify the thesis of common authorship, might have given rise to the conviction of Spaulding's neighbors that one was a plagiarism of the other. Both were said to have come from out of the earth; both were stories of colonists sailing from the Old World to the New; both explained the earthworks and mounds common to western New York and Ohio as the result of savage wars. John Miller had spoken of "humorous passages" in Spaulding's work, which would certainly apply to the "Manuscript Story," but not to the utterly humorless Book of Mormon. stylistic similarities between the Book of Mormon and the extant manuscript, since the latter was full of unmistakable literary mannerisms of the kind that are more easily acquired than shed. Spaulding was heir to all the florid sentiment and grandiose rhetoric of the English Gothic romance. He used all the stereotyped patterns - villainy versus innocent maidenhood, thwarted love, and heroic valor - thickly encrusted with the tradition of the noble savage. The Book of Mormon had but one scant reference to a love affair, and its rhythmical, monotonous style bore no resemblance to the cheap cliches' and purple metaphors abounding in the Spaulding story. force to this shameful tale of lies? The only reason is, that he was not a fit tool for them to work with... were familiar with the theory and believed it, he said, but few could give first-hand information. Rigdon's brother-in-law, not a Mormon, and Isaac King, an old neighbor, swore to him that Rigdon did not go to Pittsburgh before 1822. Mrs. Lambdin, widow of Patterson's partner, denied any knowledge of Rigdon, as did Robert P. DuBois, who had worked in the printing shop between 1818 and 1820. on Sundays. Rigdon said Smith took the manuscript and said, 'I'll print it,' and went off to Palmyra, New York." * Forty years previous to 1884 would have been the year of Smith's assassination. Rigdon never lived in St. Louis, nor did Joseph Smith ever visit Ohio before 1831. Campbellite Church, he was one of the four key men of that church. It cannot be held that Rigdon rewrote the Spaulding manuscript before 1827, since the anti-Masonry permeating the book clearly stemmed from the Morgan excitement beginning late in 1826. NOVEMBER 14,1830
Alexander Campbell, who knew Rigdon intimately, described his conversion to Mormonism with great regret in the Millennial Harbinger, attributing it to his nervous spasms and swoonings and to his passionate belief in the imminent gathering of Israel. But of the authorship of the Book of Mormon he wrote bluntly: "It is as certainly Smith's fabrication as Satan is the father of lies or darkness is the offspring of night."* |
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Document: Dale Lowell Morgan (1914-1971) "A Prophet and His Legend" Saturday Review of Literature (NYC: November 24, 1945) Article excerpt Transcriber's comments |
Copyright © 1945
by Saturday Review of Literature
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A Prophet and His Legend NO MAN KNOWS MY HISTORY: The Life if Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet, By Fawn M. Brodie. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. (1945) 476 pp. and index. $4. Reviewed by DALE L. MORGAN AS with his contemporary, Abraham Lincoln, and to even more marked degree, there is about the life of Joseph Smith extraordinary difficulty in getting at the man himself inside the encrustation of Legend. Apotheosis has been the lot of each man, but in the case of the Mormon prophet something exactly akin to deification has been at work. Vilification of him has largely disappeared with his generation, while among his followers faith and the will to believe have worked upon his memory, expurgating the history of the grotesque, the absurd, or the merely inconvenient, softening his faults, and investing his character with a sweet serenity and an infinite love -- a being who withstood the devil and all his archangels and died a martyr. Nor is the task of searching out the man inside this temple of belief the only difficulty confronting a biographer. The life of Joseph Smith was an outrageous melodrama any playwright would tremble at placing on a stage, yet at the heart of this melodrama was a character infinitely complex and [steadily] enigmatic. Joseph Smith was a man who wrote largely about himself, yet revealed himself almost in nothing, and a man, moreover, abundantly contradictory interests, motivations, and ambitions. He became the most celebrated of modern prophets, and revised his history accordingly; his followers have gone on revising it to suit their needs and tastes, and his enemies have contributed their full quota of obfuscation. Between the suppression and the manufacture of fact, it is not strange that it has required a hundred years for the vetting of a definitive biography. In her "No Man Knows My History," Fawn M. Brodie has taken up the challenge Joseph Smith laid down in a sermon to his people two months before his death: "You don't know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my history. I cannot tell itl I shall never undertake it. I don't blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself." Mrs. Brodie has pursued that history through quiet country towns in Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania, through religious revivals, land booms, and loanics, through [-------vars] and "mobbings and drivings" across the breadth of the Mississippi Valley, and through temples, court-rooms, bedrooms, and jails to its violent end in a little town in Illinois. Joseph Smith's story is all he says of it -- so fundamentally incredible that notwithstanding the million present-day Mormons and the stupendous literature about him, one is sometimes persuaded that no such person ever existed. But in Mrs. Brodie's book an eminently human and entirely understandable being stares into peepstones, communes with God, kicks the tax collector the length of his walk, rebukes the powers of his time, drinks with the boys, marries some fifty wives, parades with the Nauvoo Legion, and has his people distinctly to understand that a prophet is a prophet only while he is working at the job. The result is the finest job of scholarship yet done in Mormon history and perhaps the outstanding biography in several years -- a book distinguished in the range and originality of its research, the informed and searching objectively of its viewpoint, the richness and suppleness of its prose, and its narrative power. It is with wit and vigor and learning that Mrs. Brodie has reexamined some of the most cherished and most fundamental conceptions of Mormon history, the first sober application of modern techniques and criteria of research to a history fiercely irreconcilable in its details and overlaid with both passion and duplicity. The story of Joseph;s intercourse with God in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon she pictures as essentially an afterthought on the part of the Prophet, and hers is a fresh point of view which will give pause to scholars in and out of the several Mormon churches. The Book of Mormon that she subjects to a remarkably original analysis of its character, its content, and the sources of its ideas; in her hands it emerges as a work of imaginative creation by a variously gifted young man, a work which negan on a simple speculation and ended as the touchstone of a new religion in which its author had become communicant. Though this theory is not new, her implementation is. If the Spaulding theory relative to the origin of the Book of Mormon has retained any adherents in the face of forceful criticisms by B. H. Roberts on one side and Bernard DeVoto on the other, the appendix Mrs. Brodie devotes to this subject should lay that theory to rest once and for all. But Mrs. Brodie's demolitions have been carried still further: those who have accepted Mr. DeVoto's persuasive theory that Joseph Smith was a paranoid will find no comfort at all in this book. That theory rests initially upon an acceptance of the historicity of Joseph Smith's own account of his visions, and it will be quite an undertaking for scholars to reestablish the authenticity of those visions in the light of Mrs. Brodie's exploration of the facts; moreover, Mrs. Brodie's skilful integration of Joseph Smith with the turbulent times in which he lived, together with the surgical job she has performed in laying open the quality and character of his personality, does not encourage the thesis that Joseph's was a personality for which death barely intervened upon [complete] disintergration. Having faced up to the hard fact that Joseph Smith must have been initially a conscious fraud and impostor, Mrs Brodie is not so undiscerning as to leave the question there. Joseph's capacity for fantasy was entirely inadequate to persuade him ultimately of the actuality of his own pretension, though Mrs. Brodie thinks it doubtful if he ever escaped the "memory of the conscious artifice that went into the Book of Mormon," no one can explore his history without reaching the conviction that he came to believe utterly the role to which destiny led him... due to copyright restrictions on the text. |
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Transcriber's Comments Using the Transcribed 1945 Text Although the late Mrs. Brodie's "NMKMY" text is copyrighted, it has been frequently quoted in large blocks, both in printed books and in on-line web pages. Given this almost ubiquitous large scale repduction of Brodie's fifty-seven year old text, the Sapalding Studies Site Host has tentatively decided to reprint her entire "Appendix B" without securing special permission from the copyright holder. Also, a few other short excerpts from her 1945 volume have been transcribed and are featured in this web-document. Should this unauthorized reproduction become the cause of any future statutory actions being ditrected against the Site Host and/or this web site's ISP, the posted e-text can and will be scaled back (to include only her most relevant paragraphs regarding the so-called Spalding "theory."). Given the above precaution and self-imposed restraints, the Site Host has placed on-line only a very small portion of Brodie's book, even though he has already transcribed her entire 1945 published text (for personal consultation in e-text form). In this web-document non-reproduced textual blocks from Mrs. Brodie's book have either been omitted entirely or, in some instances, have been represented by a series of repeating characters, thusly: xxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxx xx xxxxxxx. From time to time, when certain citational needs arise, a few additional short excerpts from the first edition of No man Knows My History will probably be added to this file.
Fawn Brodie -- Not an anti-Mormon Because Brodie was denounced by the leaders of the LDS Church in the mid-1940s and eventually excommunicated from that religious body, modern readers of her work generally peruse its contents as being representative of some kind of an attack on the Church, carried out by a vengeful writer. A closer investigation of Mrs. Brodie and her researching of the Smith biography, however, does not support the commonly encountered notion that she was an anti-Mormon writing an anti-LDS book. In fact, Mrs. Brodie was an heir to the rationalist revolution that quietly wafted a new wind of change through some of the upper ranks of the LDS Church during the 1920s and 1930s. Although anti-intellectualism was still the order of the day "down on the farm" and "over at the meeting house," a number of educated Saints of her day (especially those from the "better families") were evolving away from unlettered faith in an improbable religion and social system, to a new view of things "in Zion." Those were the days when a University of Chicago graduate degree were not incompatible with the honors and responsibilities of, say, a son of an Apostle or a neice of a President in the Church. Some of the new rationalists drifted away from the camp of Israel, while others lingered on the fringes, the forerunners of contemporary "cultural Mormons." Among this set might be found the likes of a Bernard DeVoto, a Stanley Ivins, or a M. Wilford Poulson. The ones like Dale L. Morgan would find their niches within the crannies of the good ship Restoration -- the ones like Fawn McKay Brodie would pursue their "book learning" right out of the fold of the Church. Just how much Brodie expected the contents of her book to revolutionize the LDS Church remains debatable. She was not born a revolutionary and her personal evolution, through higher education, scholarly research, and publication of a very problematical book, did not lead her into any secret cabals and samizats, engaged in a twilight struggle to enlighten their fellow Mormons. Still, it is clear that Mrs. Brodie intended on remaining in the LDS Church -- had she not been excommunicated she would have probably eventually drifted back into its circles in some university town somewhere, with enough of the "questioning faithful" to support a semi-unorthodox branch or a "progressive ward." Perhaps she hoped that her book would shake loose a few of the top leaders among the LDS from a mindless adoration of Joseph Smith, Jr. But, more likely, she expected to merely influence a few minds within the next generation and otherwise forget she ever studied the "true" Mormon history. In order for the contemporary reader of "NMKMY" to gain a better understanding of the context in which Mrs. Brodie researched and published her imaginative "psycho-biography" of Joseph Smith, Jr., the investigator is directed to first consult these useful resources: 1. Marvin S. Hill, review in Dialogue 7 (Winter 1972) 2. Marvin S. Hill, review in Church History 43:1 (March 1974) 3. Newell G. Bringhurst "The Renegade..." in John Whitmer Hist. Assoc. Journal, 12 (1992) 4. Newell G. Bringhurst (ed) Reconsidering No Man Knows My History (Logan UT: 1996) 5. Newell G. Bringhurst (ed) Fawn McKay Brodie (Norman: Univ. of Okla. Press, 1999). The Influence of I. W. Riley upon Fawn Brodie Brodie's 1945 book has been called a "psychobiographical account of Joseph Smith." The methods, motives, and preconceptions bound up in her investigation into the mental and emotional aspects of Smith's private life were almost certainly heavily dependent upon the previous psychoanalytic reporting of I. Woodbridge Riley. Brodie did not follow psychologist Riley in all his notions regarding the sphinx-like Smith; she replaced Riley's primitive prognosis for the Mormon leader (whom Riley assumed was an epileptic) with more sophisticated Freudian literary-forensic judgments, providing a much more believable word portrait of Smith than her literary predecessor had been able to produce. Still, Brodie followed closely in Riley's tracks in her own early abandonment of the Spalding-Rigdon claims for Book of Mormon origins. While Brodie's acceptance of Riley's trail blazing down this conceptual path opened the way for her exaltation of Joseph Smith to the role of an almost admirable writer of scriptures and founder of religious tenets, that consequential choice on her part also served to relegate other, earlier explanations for Mormon origins to the dustbin of history -- both in the mind of Brodie herself and in the minds of numerous readers of her book. Prior to the appearance of Brodie's book in 1945, a substantial number of the students of Mormon history still held open possible validity of the traditional explanation for the coming forth of Mormonism -- that the genesis of the movement and its sacred texts owed far more to the clandestine machinations of the Rev. Sidney Rigdon than they did to any possible inception from among the Mormon Smith family and their known associates. Brodie also followed and amplified Riley's views on Book of Mormon origins, when she acknowledged the Rev. Ethan Smith's 1823 book, A View of the Hebrews as having furnished important primary source material to the "Nephite Record." In pursuing this avenue for identifying presumed bookish influences upon Smith, her conjectured literary prodigy, Brodie seems to have leaned heavily upon the prior investigations of Elder B. H. Roberts (as reported in his then unpublished writings on Ethan Smith and the Book of Mormon). Elements of the Ethan Smith theory for Book of Mormon origins ante-dated Roberts' reporting by several decades, but if Brodie relied upon these sorts of obscure sources, she did not cite them -- perhaps, in part, because for her to have done so would have eventually led her back to the old Solomon Spalding claims she was then attempting to discredit. The Influence of Bernard deVoto upon Fawn Brodie In 1936, Bernard A. deVoto, the popular novelist and historian, abandoned his previously held opinion that Solomon Spalding's manuscript had served as the basis for the Book of Mormon. Only six years before, in his seminal article, "The Centennial of Mormonism," deVoto had accepted the Spalding claims as part and parcel of any truthful explanation for Book of Mormon authorship. Between 1930 and 1936 (when deVoto expanded and republished his original article) the author may have been influenced by the writing of Harry M. Beardsley to the point that he decided to eliminate the Rev. Sidney Rigdon from any reconstruction of Mormon origins. After having dropped the previously supposed Rigdon-Smith conspiracy from his views, deVoto decided to abandon the Spading-Rigdon "theory" entirely, branding that old explanation for the birth of Mormonism as "untenable." Fawn Brodie was, no doubt aware of deVoto's highly significant change of views. Both writers came from the Mormon town of Ogden Utah. Writer Richard Saunders, in his 1995 article, "The Strange Mixture of Emotion and Intellect: Social History of Dale L. Morgan," has this to say about the intellectual situation of writers like the then youthful Brodie: "In the years following the depression of the 1930s there rose a group of writers known informally in Latter-day Saint history as Mormonism's "Lost Generation." These were a diverse lot of academics and writers with familial roots in Utah but who almost always circulated outside of the state's boundaries." Saunders places both Brodie and deVoto in this particular group of early twentieth century intellectuals. Brodie's biographer, Newell G. Bringhurst, calls deVoto the "leader of Mormondom's 'lost generation.'" While Fawn M. Brodie followed deVoto's lead in minimizing the role of Sidney Rigdon in early Mormonism -- as well as eliminating the influence of Spalding totally -- her purpose in doing so was somewhat different than deVoto's. He had dismissed the literary value of the Book of Mormon as being little more than a "yeasty" production of Joseph Smith's youthful "paranoia," while Fawn M. Brodie seized upon the same book as being a kind of gold mine of personal information, left behind by the otherwise enigmatic Mormon prophet. Brodie drew upon the book's contents to help her plot out her psycho-biography of Joseph Smith, Jr., something deVoto saw as being a useless task. DeVoto saw Smith as acting under a sort of compulsion, under which he felt the necessity to compile a pseudoscriptural book, the contents of which he drew from diverse sources. DeVoto might have gone so far as to agree that both Solomon Spalding and Joseph Smith had been influenced in forming their ideas regarding the American Indians by writers like Elias Boudinot and Ethan Smith, but he did not take the time to say much about such interesting connections. Brodie, on the other hand, took up the cues provided by I. Woodbridge Riley and had a great deal to say about this kind of literary dependence. For all practical purposes, Brodie replaced the traditional reliance of non-Mormon writers upon the Solomon Spalding authorship claims with Roberts' and Riley's views relating to Ethan Smith's pre-1827 writings. In making this mental switch, Brodie also replaced the Rev. Sidney Rigdon's previously presumed role in "getting up Mormonism," with the roguish genius of the young Joseph Smith, Jr. himself. This move on her part was not entirely original. Writers all the way back to Henry Caswall and Jonathan B. Turner (in the early 1840s) had occasionally attempted to "ditch" Rigdon and attach a lion's share of the credit for composing the Book of Mormon upon the broad shoulders of Joseph Smith, Jr. In order to effectively make this transition -- away from both Spalding and Rigdon, Brodie seized upon a most unworthy expedient: she simply ignored the contributions of Sidney Rigdon to the development and progress of early Mormonism. Even her friend and sometimes critic, Dale L. Morgan, warned Brodie that she was taking a bad tack in pursuing this particular course. Even if the student of Mormon history were to concede that Sidney Rigdon played no part in the story until the end of 1830, it is clear that Rigdon exercised a tremendous influence both upon the latter day religion and upon the personal development of Smith himself. By editing Rigdon out of the story, Brodie crafted a lop-sided attempt at biographical writing which is neither faithful history nor an insightful exploration into the psyche and actions of the Mormon Prophet. In producing such a book, Brodie was inadvertently echoing the methods and reults of those writers of her day who produced biographies of Joseph Stalin, minus any meaningful mention of Leon Trotsky and his contribution to Bolshevikism. In crediting Joseph Smith, Jr. with having written the Book of Mormon, Fawn M. Brodie gave birth to the uncomfortable predicament where both Mormon traditionalists and Spalding claims advocates find themselves bedfellows in the determination that Smith could not possibly have written the book alone. Either he had the "gift and power of God" at his disposal, or he had co-conspirators who furnished him with the materials for his 1830 book. The LDS faithful point to Smith's youthful ignorance and inability to write more than a simple letter as proof of his not authorshing the book. While, at the same time, conspiracy theorists point to Smith's reported shiftless, laziness, and inveterate chicanery as circumstantial proof that he never slaves for hour upon hour at the writing bench with the tomes of Josiah Priest and Ethan Smith stacked beside him. In his 1945 review of Brodie's book, "insider" Dale Morgan says: "The result is the finest job of scholarship yet done in Mormon history and perhaps the outstanding biography in several years -- a book distinguished in the range and originality of its research, the informed and searching objectively of its viewpoint, the richness and suppleness of its prose, and its narrative power." While many informed persons might (and did) question the truth of Morgan's ovation, few could deny his final words praising her new book: "the richness and suppleness of its prose, and its narrative power." Brodie's book is highly readable. A non-specialist with a high school reading level can generally make his or her way through the book and come away with a mind full of lingering word pictures and an intuitive grasp of the messages Brodie intends to convey. In that very fact, that it is so fully readable and comprehendable, lies the book's insidious power to distort history and conceal the private life of its protagonist. The public persona of Joseph Smith, Jr. comes across rather well in Brodie's book; it is the man behind that mask who remains hidden, all her efforts to expose him notwithstanding. Fawn Brodie's Strange "Appendix B" Brodie was not so nonchalant in her conjectures about Joseph Smith, Jr. being the writer of the Book of Mormon so as to simply dismiss the old Spalding-Rigdon thesis out of hand. The Spalding claims had been withering on the vine of the popular press for years before she delivered her celebrated death blow to that old explanation for Book of Mormon origins. Still, the notion lingered in some circles, that Spalding and/or Rigdon were somehow connected to the birth of the Mormon religion and its sacred book. Brodie could not bypass those remnants of an earlier epoch without making some attempt at justifying her Smith-as the-author thesis and refuting at least the main points of the Spalding "theory." As mentioned previously, her ingenious answer to the Rigdon and Spalding problem is to avoid practically all mention of those persons in the main body of her book. She provids her readers with chapter upon chapter of her "narrative power," constructing her portrait of Smith with all the craftsmanship of a renaissance painter. Only after that portrait is completed and staring the reader full in the face does Brodie tack on to it her lame alibi, supposedly showing that Spalding and Rigdon are names not worthy of the reader's close attention. At the very end of her magnum opus Brodie presents an "appendix" in which Spalding and Rigdon are dealt with in short order. While the main body of her book is thoroughly readable and occasionally includes some commendable examples of scholarship, the entire Appendix B is unsanctionably shoddy and error-ridden. If Brodie is to vindicate the preeminence of her Smith-as the-author thesis, this is the place where her pretensions to unblemished research and insightful analysis should stand in resplendent display. In no way is this the case, however. In her "appendix" Fawn Brodie betrays again and again the fact that she did not research the life of Sidney Rigdon. She does not know the man well enough to say a single intelligent thing about him. Yet, Brodie throws herself into the task of separating Rigdon from Spalding in the midn of the reader. Further more, she attempts to pry the reputations of both men loose from any attachment to Book of Mormon origins. Her attempt is an utter failure -- she barely scratched the surface of available important source material in her brief glance at the Solomon Spalding claims for Book of Mormon authorship. The tenablity of Brodie's conclusions, as expressed in her book, suffers exceedingly -- both because of her painfully evident sloppy research and because of her equivocating attempts to apply any sort of logic in dismissing even that minimal Spalding claims documentation which she did bother to consult. How is it then that this utter failure -- Brodie's supposed rebuttal of what she is pleased to call the Spalding "theory" is so frequently cited in otherwise well researched and well written books on the early history of the Mormons? The answer to this mystery lies chiefly in the fact that her readers generally know practically nothing regarding the complexities of the Spalding claims and their supporting documention. Given this widespread ignorance among her readership, Brodie is able to pull off the illusion that she has demolished a pile of unhistorical assertions and palpable "perjury." The current writer (who is also the Web Host for this series of electronic documents) has begun to place on-line various web-pages featuring the results of his lengthy and detailed examination of Fawn M. Brodie's assumptions, presentations, and conclusions relating to the origin of Mormonism and its first sacred book. Some initial efforts in this direction may be found in the writer's comments attached to the published statements of Rebecca Johnston Eichbaum and Sidney Rigdon. A more comprehensive review of Brodie's problematical opinions may be had in the writer's work-on-progress, "A Closer Look at Fawn M. Brodie's Refutation of the Spalding Authorship Claims" (an unpublished paper by Dale R. Broadhurst) e-text transcription under construction. |
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