The Joseph Smith Papers will be a comprehensive edition of extant Joseph Smith documents featuring complete and accurate transcription with both textual and contextual annotation.

They will present the earliest handwritten and published texts of the foundational documents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including Joseph Smith’s revelations and translations. The Papers will provide insights into Joseph’s life and times through his correspondence, journals, discourses, court cases, and business dealings. In addition, the Papers will contain minutes of important church councils, reproductions of the scriptural canon as it existed during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, official histories, and records pertaining to church institutions that were under Joseph Smith’s direction or that reflect his personal instruction and involvement.

With the Papers’ publication, readers will have, for the first time in one place, access to these essential primary documents. To date, there never has been a complete listing, let alone a comprehensive edition, of Joseph Smith’s papers. This ambitious project is intended to fill that gap.

This comprehensive edition will include all known and available documents meeting our criteria as Joseph Smith documents. With selective editions, documents may be excluded because they are of less interest or importance or about topics not emphasized in the collection. Comprehensive editions make no such exclusions. Each document will be published in its entirety in paper and electronically. The only exceptions are routine or repetitive forms and certificates.

Visit the official Joseph Smith Papers website.