Elias: An Epic of the Ages

New York: The Knickerboker Press, 1904. First Edition. 162pp. Octavo [23 cm] Red cloth with the title gilt stamped on the backstrip. Very good. This is the 'Autograph Edition De Luxe' that was limited to 150 signed and numbered copies, this copy out-of-series and unsigned. Four of the five tipped in plates are present with tissue guards (lacks the frontispiece), three of these plates are by H.L.A. Culmer. According to Saunders: "The book is a series of twelve canto poems of varying metrical composition, the whole of which describes the history of the world from creation through to final redemption. The first and second poem relate the author's spiritual (truncated) awakening and present a soliloquy upon his mountains and the inspiration to 'sing the epic of time and eternity, while the final ten carry the story." - Collectible Mormon Books 41. Flake/Draper 9762a.

Orson Ferguson Whitney (1855-1931) served as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from 1906 until his death in 1931. Whitney was also a politician, journalist, and taught at Brigham Young College during the 1890s. He was also the author of several publications and wrote the lyrics to a few of the LDS Church's hymns. (Inventory #: 9817)