The late 1830s and early 1840s were a period of rapid growth for the young church. As converts continued to join in large numbers, the need for a new edition of the Doctrine and Covenants became increasingly evident. In 1839, apostle Parley P. Pratt, who had stopped in New York on his way to serve a mission in England, wrote to JS describing the growth of the church and missionary work in the eastern United States. In his letter he stated that there was “a great call for our Books” and proposed plans to begin printing the Book of Mormon and other church publications.1 Requests for church publications continued to come from other branches of the church during the early 1840s.2 Church leaders in Nauvoo, Illinois, expressed a concern about scriptures being published in the United States without the “immediate inspection” of the First Presidency of the church.3 Though careful about the authority under which scripture such as the Doctrine and Covenants would be published, the leadership in Nauvoo made it clear that the publication of scripture was a top priority. Published minutes of a conference held in October 1840 indicated that another edition of the Book of Mormon was nearly completed and that arrangements had been made for printing the Doctrine and Covenants and the church hymnal.4

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By the following summer, the work was nearly complete. A notice dated 11 June 1844 and published the next day in the Nauvoo Neighbor announced optimistically: “The Book of Doctrine and Covenants will be published in about one month from this time. Those wishing for an early supply had better make immediate application.”22 A little over two weeks later, however, JS and Hyrum Smith were killed by a mob at Carthage, Illinois, and printer John Taylor was seriously wounded, delaying the printing of the volume yet again.23 The above-mentioned notice continued to run in the Nauvoo Neighbor from 26 June through 30 October 1844, though copies of the volume were available well before the 30 October issue.

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The 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants is essentially a reprint of the 1835 edition, with the addition of eight new items. The second edition reprinted the seven “Lectures on Faith” and all 103 numbered sections included in the “Covenants and Commandments” part of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. The 1835 edition included two sections numbered 66 (here referred to as 66a and 66b). This mistake was corrected in the 1844 edition. As a result, sections 1 through 66a of the 1835 edition correspond with sections 1 through 66 of the 1844 edition, and sections 66b through 99 in the 1835 edition correspond with sections 67 through 100 in the 1844 edition. The final three sections of the 1835 edition, sections 100 through 102, were numbered as sections 108 through 110 in the 1844 edition.

The eight new items added to the 1844 edition became sections 101 through 107 and section 111. Sections 101 and 102—both revelations regarding the redemption of Zion—were available for use in the 1835 publication but were not printed therein. Sections 103 (which was printed without a section number), 104, and 107 are JS revelations dictated after 1835. Sections 105 and 106 are JS letters written in the 1840s. Section 111, a tribute to the slain JS and Hyrum Smith, is believed to have been written by John Taylor, the publisher of the 1844 Doctrine and Covenants and an eyewitness to the murders. It was composed after most of the work on the volume had been completed. Only by using a smaller typeface than what appears in the rest of the volume were the printers able to fit this last section into the available space following section 110 and preceding a brief three-page “index.” The editors of the 1844 edition used a variety of sources to set type for these eight items.28 The sources used by the editors contained other revelations and letters that would have been candidates for publication in the Doctrine and Covenants, and the reasons for selecting the particular revelations and letters that were included are unknown.