Book of Mormon Liverpool Edition (1841)

This copy of the Book of Mormon belonged to Mercy R. Fielding Thompson. It bears a note by her descendants that on the morning of June 24, 1844, her husband, Hyrum Smith, read from it before leaving Nauvoo with his brother Joseph for Carthage, Illinois. After reading what is today Ether 12:36–38, Hyrum turned down the top left corner of the page.

This edition was printed in Liverpool, England, in 1841 under the direction of Brigham Young and other members of the Quorum of the Twelve who had been called there as missionaries. The text was taken from the 1837 edition published in Kirtland, Ohio, but this volume was the first to include an index and to move the testimonies of the witnesses to the front of the book. More than 4,000 copies were produced, this time at a cost of £210, and bound in sheep, calf, and morocco leather with gilt stamp covers. Over the next several decades, thousands of British citizens read the book, joined the Church, and migrated to join the Saints in Utah.

Embarkation of the Saints at Liverpool in 1851, by Ken Baxter