The first volume of the Documents series, the backbone series of the Joseph Smith Papers Project. This series allows readers to trace Joseph Smith's activities month by month in chronological order through his life. When complete, the Documents series will publish more than a thousand documents created, authorized, or owned by Joseph Smith, including each of his revelations in its earliest form, reports of his discourses, and correspondence. Also found in the series are articles and editorials he wrote for newspapers, minutes of meetings in which he participated, and records of his ecclesiastical administration. This first volume of the Documents series consists of documents written from July 1828 to June 1831. Among the contents of this volume are more than five dozen revelations that were presented in the first-person voice of Jesus Christ, including texts later published in the Doctrine and Covenants, the expansive visions of Moses (now found in the Pearl of Great Price), and revelations never canonized. In addition, several documents in this volume trace the process of translating and printing the Book of Mormon, as well as early efforts to evangelize using the book and its message. These texts provide the earliest textual insights into Joseph Smith and the founding of what was then called the Church of Christ. They offer glimpses into the religious leader's thoughts, concerns, and initiatives in a crucial early period of the religious movement he started. This book allows the reader not only to study Joseph Smith but also to gain a greater understanding of his followers and the millenarian movement they participated in during the Second Great Awakening. The Project in general and the editors of D1, in particular, have marshaled an unparalleled effort to ferret out even the most obscure references to people, places, and chronology and critically assess them. As a result D1 offers sometimes surprisingly novel insights into the documents which it contains, and in several cases radically alters our understanding. D1 is the starting point for any serious study of early Mormonism. --J. Stapley, "Review: Documents, Volume 1, 1829-1831 of the JSPP," By Common Consent (blog), June 16, 2014 This documentary edition of the papers of the founding father of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has joined, if not displaced, leading-edge projects dedicated to more secular founders. . . . Simply stated, The Joseph Smith Papers Project is indeed a marvelous work and a wonder. Its editors are committed people of faith who are also rigorous scholars of early Mormon history and professionals trained in the best practices of the modern documentary editing tradition and who rely on the latest in modern technology and are supported and sustained by a resourceful and history-minded church. --Mark A. Mastromarino, "Rough Stone Rising: The Joseph Smith Papers Project," Mormon Studies Review 2 (2015): 86-104 Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat are assistant professors of religion at Brigham Young University. Grant Underwood is a professor of history at Brigham Young University. Robert J. Woodford is a retired instructor at the Latter-day Saint Institute of Religion at the University of Utah. William G. Hartley is an emeritus associate professor of his­tory at Brigham Young University.