12mo (178 x 102 mm). (Lacking frontispiece, few small tears with loss to front free endpaper, spotting and browning throughout, paper transfer on rear pastedown.) Contemporary calf, smooth spine divided in 5 compartments, red morroco lettering-piece gilt (extremities rubbed, spine darkened, two small scorch marks to upper cover, partial library label at foot of spine). Provenance: Mrs. Brownwall, donated to Bethany College (bookplate; stamps on p.51 and rear free endpaper; library ink and pencil notations at front and rear); Alexander Campbell (1788-1866), American religious leader and founder of Bethany College (ownership signature on front pastedown but in another hand, partially covered); pencil scrawl in margin of p.99 and on title-page.

FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST BOOK-LENGTH ATTACK ON MORMONISM, PUBLISHED ONLY FOUR YEARS AFTER THE BOOK OF MORMON.

Eber D. Howe, editor of the Painesville Telegraph, witnessed the rapid growth of Mormonism in northeastern Ohio following the arrival of missionaries in 1830 and the establishment of the church at nearby Kirtland the following year. Drawing upon affidavits collected in New York and Pennsylvania by Mormon dissenter Doctor Philastus Hurlbut, as well as the letters of another dissenter, Ezra Booth, Mormonism Unvailed assembled some of the earliest hostile testimony concerning Joseph Smith, his family, and the origins of the Book of Mormon. It is the “first elaborate critique of this sect, the first to exploit the Spaulding manuscript and the best contemporary account of Mormon activities in Ohio” (Howes), and “perhaps the most important account of the early days of the Mormon Church” (Streeter).

The work gave wide currency to the so-called Spaulding theory, which proposed that the Book of Mormon narrative derived from an unpublished romance by Solomon Spaulding and was later adapted by Sidney Rigdon. Although subsequently discredited, the theory remained influential among critics of Mormonism throughout much of the nineteenth century.

A SUPERB ASSOCIATION COPY, BELONGING TO ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, WHOSE OWN EARLY CRITIQUE OF THE BOOK OF MORMON IS REPRINTED HERE.

Campbell (1788-1866), the Ulster-born minister and a leading figure of the American Restoration Movement, was among the earliest prominent opponents of Mormonism. He attacked the Book of Mormon in the Millennial Harbinger before publishing his critique separately as Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon (1832). Howe incorporated Campbell’s Delusions into Mormonism Unvailed, making Campbell not merely an important contemporary reader of the present work, but a contributor to its text.

RARE: According to online records, this is only the third copy offered since 1983. Flake 4104; Graff 1985; Howes E-717; Sabin 33290; Streeter Sale 2264.