“This is a meticulously researched and skillfully written work on Mormon polygamy. The author does not take sides in this tangled web of theology and practice, but instead has produced what may well be the definitive work on polygamy. I highly recommend it.” —Linda King Newell, co-author, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith “ Nauvoo Polygamy  is s a thorough investigation of sexual politics in the City of the Saints, the 1840s Mormon headquarters in the U.S. State of Illinois. Written with precision, clarity, and ease, it is a major contribution to Mormon history, groundbreaking in identifying the other polygamists who followed the lead of their prophet, Joseph Smith, in taking multiple partners.” —Klaus J. Hansen, Professor Emeritus of History, Queen’s University, Ontario “If for no other reason, the inclusion of chapter 6 makes this book worth its price. The chapter quotes liberally from those like Elizabeth Ann Whitney and Bathsheba Smith who accepted polygamy rather easily, those like Jane Richards who accepted it only reluctantly, and those like Patty Sessions who found plural marriage almost unbearable. A bonus is chapter 9 which provides a concise historical overview of polygamous societies in Reformation Europe, touches on similar societies in America, and offers an extended discussion of Orson Pratt’s 1852 defense of plural marriage.” —Thomas G. Alexander, Professor Emeritus of History, Brigham Young University “George Smith shows how many of the prophet’s followers embraced plural marriage during a period when the LDS Church was emphatically denying the practice … [and he tells this in] a lucid writing style.” —Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer Prize winning author of  What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. “An extremely important contribution to the history of polygamy … that allows us to see how Joseph Smith’s marriages fit into the context of his daily life.” —Todd M. Compton, author of  In Sacred loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, had several other unique accomplishments in his shortened life. Among the most unusual was the institution of plural marriage or polygamy that he began in response to revelations from God. Beginning in the Mormon city of Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith married thirty-eight women and in the process, introduced the theological concept and practice of 'celestial marriage' to his most important followers. By early 1846 some 200 men had adopted a polygamous life style with 717 wives in total. After being expelled from Nauvoo by their non-Mormon neighbors, these men of the church would go on to marry a recorded total of 417 more women giving them an average of six wives each. In their new Utah settlements, this example would be taken up by others and despite the eventual abandonment of the practice by the Mormon Church, the practice continues among Mormon splinter groups to this very day. "Nauvoo Polygamy" is a 705-page work of impressive, meticulous, insightful, detailed, and documented historical scholarship by a noted Mormon historian and publisher making with very highly recommended reading for students of Mormon history in general, and the evolution of the practice of polygamy within the Mormon Church in particular. --Midwest Book Review  George D. Smith is a graduate of Stanford and New York University. He is the editor of the landmark frontier diaries of one of the most prominent Mormon pioneers, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton, and of Religion, Feminism, and Freedom of Conscience. He has published in  Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought ,  Free Inquiry , the   John Whitmer Historical Journal ,  Journal of Mormon History ,Restoration Studies, and  Sunstone . He has served on the boards of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, the  Kenyon Review , the Leakey Foundation, and National Public Radio.  Introduction In 1792, Napoleon, then a young soldier in the French army, wrote to his “sweet and incomparable” Josephine of their first night together: “I have awakened full of you. The memory of last night has given my senses no rest … What an effect you have on my heart! I send you thousands of kisses—but don’t kiss me. Your kisses sear my blood.”1 The soldier’s adventures had just begun. Napoleon Bonaparte went on to conquer Austria, invade Egypt, and in 1804 crown himself Emperor of France. Although Josephine was not the only woman in his life, this alluring Creole from Martinique would marry her new lover and become Empress of France.2 A few decades later on the American frontier, another man of ambition, coincidentally inspired by what Napoleon had found in Egypt, wrote his own letter to a young woman. It was the summer of 1842 and the thirty-six-year-old prophet, Joseph Smith, hiding from the law down by the Mississippi River in Illinois, proposed a tryst with the appealing seventeen-year-old, Sarah Ann Whitney. “My feelings are so strong for you,” he wrote. “Come and