In early 1830, as the Book of Mormon was being prepared for publication by E. B. Grandin in Palmyra, New York, Joseph Smith received a revelation instructing him to “secure the copyright” of the forthcoming book. This revelation is sometimes designated the “Canadian copyright revelation,” so called because in it the Lord instructs the recipients to travel to the city of Kingston in what is today the Canadian province of Ontario. It was there, the Lord says, that Joseph was authorized to “sell a copyright” of the Book of Mormon to the remaining provinces. If the people of Kingston would not “harden their hearts” against the Spirit, the Lord assured the success of the endeavor.

The mission to Kingston, however, met with failure. We unfortunately do not know the particulars of why, but years later Hiram Page, one of the participants named in the revelation, left his own account in a letter to Wiliam McLellin that gives us some insight into the affair. So too does a late recollection by David Whitmer, but his recounting is much more negative, esteeming the whole matter as a total fiasco and the revelation a failed one (and, by implication, not an actual revelation at all).

Thanks to the recovery of the original text of this revelation—which, for example, clearly stipulates the conditional nature of the Lord’s promises on the faithfulness of both those addressed in the revelation and the inhabitants of Kingston—we can reasonably say that Whitmer’s negative assessment of this matter is not warranted. Likewise, the legal factors at play in this text concerning the copyright of the Book of Mormon have also been explored at length, so that we need not misapprehend the intentions behind this revelation. The point appears to have been, basically, to franchise the printing rights of the text, not relinquish it entirely in some supposed last-ditch effort on Joseph’s part to make quick money (as some have erroneously portrayed). Having the text of this revelation and understanding its social and legal context thus helps us tremendously as we piece together the history of the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon.

The revelation contains the Lord’s pronouncements that he will deliver his servants out of “difficulty and affliction” according to their faith, as well as a promise that no power on earth shall prevent he Lord from pouring out his covenant blessings upon the faithful as long as they walk uprightly before him. These assurances may comfort Saints today just as much as they must have for the five men named in the revelation in 1830.