Winner of the Evans Biography Award, the Mormon History Association Best Book Award, and the John Whitmer Association (RLDS) Best Book Award. A preface to this first paperback edition of the biography of Emma Hale Smith, Joseph Smith's wife, reviews the history of the book and its reception. Various editorial changes effected in this edition are also discussed."--back cover.

Victorians loved to hear stories about the secret lives of Mormon women. Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Joaquin Miller, A. Conan Doyle, and others fed the public's curiosity with tale after tale. Naive Manchester shopgirls seduced by lecherous missionaries, illiterate Liverpudlian fishwives shanghaied into domestic slavery in Utah -- these were the stories that shaped public opinion. What was the truth behind such stereotypes? In fact, most female immigrants to Utah were former shopgirls, factory workers, and home pieceworkers in London and Manchester, and many were illiterate. Were they naive adventuresses? Rebecca Bartholomew fleshes out real-life profiles of these pioneering women through available letters, diaries, and public documents. They were by-and-large devout and most approached their uncertain future with eyes wide open. At minimum, they were vaguely aware of what their religious commitment entailed. If they did not fulfill Victorian fantasies of young concubines who had been abducted into desert harems, what about the romanticized icons of Mormon inspirational literature? Bartholomew: "These women made mistakes. But if they were not angels, neither were they fools. They are likable. Their lives had meaning. They demonstrated that virtue has unlikely habitats and could even sprout in (Utah)."

The principal doctrines defining Mormonism today often bear little resemblance to those it started out with in the early 1830s. This book shows that these doctrines did not originate in a vacuum but were rather prompted and informed by the religious culture from which Mormonism arose. Early Mormons, like their early Christian and even earlier Israelite predecessors, brought with them their own varied culturally conditioned theological presuppositions (a process of convergence) and only later acquired a more distinctive theological outlook (a process of differentiation). In this first-of-its-kind comprehensive treatment of the development of Mormon theology, Charles Harrell traces the history of Latter-day Saint doctrines from the times of the Old Testament to the present. He describes how Mormonism has carried on the tradition of the biblical authors, early Christians, and later Protestants in reinterpreting scripture to accommodate new theological ideas while attempting to uphold the integrity and authority of the scriptures. In the process, he probes three questions: How did Mormon doctrines develop? What are the scriptural underpinnings of these doctrines? And what do critical scholars make of these same scriptures? In this enlightening study, Harrell systematically peels back the doctrinal accretions of time to provide a fresh new look at Mormon theology. “This Is My Doctrine” will provide those already versed in Mormonism’s theological tradition with a new and richer perspective of Mormon theology. Those unacquainted with Mormonism will gain an appreciation for how Mormon theology fits into the larger Jewish and Christian theological traditions.