On the Potter's Wheel: The Diaries of Heber C. Kimball

Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1987. Limited First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. 224pp. Octavo [23.5 cm] Light and medium-dark gray cloth over boards. Silk ribbon page-marker. No dust jacket, as issued. Part of Signature Books' Significant Mormon Diaries Series. One of the more difficult volumes to find in the series. This edition is strictly limited to five hundred copies, of which this is copy number 91.

From the Introduction:

"Although unlearned and barely literate, Heber Chase Kimball (1801-68) enjoyed a highly developed sense of history and of the importance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To that end he dutifully kept a number of diaries. In some instances they are the best, and occasionally the only, contemporary account of the events they chronicle. While his penmanship, spelling, and grammar were distinctly minimal and idiosyncratic, Kimball possessed an exceptional memory. And he was, in his own right, an important figure in early Mormon history- one of the original twelve apostles, an intimate confidant of both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and the first LDS missionary to England. He was, as one New York writer termed him in 1863, five years before his death, the quintessential 'Mormon.' (Inventory #: 67392)