The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Hymns - 1835 Hymnal

1835 Hymnal

On September 14, 1835, at a meeting of the High Council and the Presidency at Kirtland, Emma Smith was again counseled to begin compiling a hymnbook:

It was further decided that Sister Emma Smith proceed to make a selection of Sacred Hymns, according to the revelation; and that President W.W. Phelps be appointed to revise and arrange them for printing.

It appears that final publication of the new hymnal may have been pushed back into early 1836. The book is tiny - just 3" by 41⁄₂" in size. An indication of the poverty of the church members in Kirtland at that time is that the hymnal was published in "sexadecimal" form, the least expensive publishing format for books in those days: sixteen pages were printed on both sides of a single sheet, which was then folded, cut, and sewn into the leather binding. Thus, the entire hymnbook could be printed on just four large sheets of paper. The completed hymnal contained ninety hymns, but only the words were included. As a result, today it is difficult to determine which tunes were used with many of the hymn texts.

Many of the hymns which had previously been published in The Evening and the Morning Star were inserted into the 1835 hymnal as a block, almost exactly in the same order as their earlier publication. Eleven of the hymns were also published in The Messenger and Advocate between December 1834 and January 1836:

Although the book was printed in 1836, it is still referred to as the “1835 hymnal” because of the publication date on the title page. The Kirtland printing of the LDS hymnbook was probably very small - perhaps 500 copies at most. Today, original copies of this hymnbook are extremely rare; less than a dozen are known to exist. On December 5, 2006 an original 1835 LDS hymnal was sold at Christie’s Auction House in New York City for $273,600.