Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet

This is a very old but still very well written biography. Its greatest strenth is the fact that George Q.Cannon met Joseph Smith and knew people who had known him most of his life. You can sense that Cannon had a deep respect and love for Joseph Smith. Of course this love and respect that Cannon had also leads to bias. Cannon does not speak much about controversial subjects in the life of Joseph Smith. There have been better biographies written about Joseph Smith since this one. Such as No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith by Fawn Brodie, this biography of course has a skeptical bias and is not always historically accurate. The most fair biography of Joseph Smith is "Joseph Smith the First Mormon" by Donna Hill. However the best biographies of Joseph Smith are still to come. But any serious person who wants to study the life of Joseph Smith must look at this one by George Q. Cannon.

This is a very old but still very well written biography. Its greatest strenth is the fact that George Q.Cannon met Joseph Smith and knew people who had known him most of his life. You can sense that Cannon had a deep respect and love for Joseph Smith. Of course this love and respect that Cannon had also leads to bias. Cannon does not speak much about controversial subjects in the life of Joseph Smith. There have been better biographies written about Joseph Smith since this one. Such as No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith by Fawn Brodie, this biography of course has a skeptical bias and is not always historically accurate. The most fair biography of Joseph Smith is "Joseph Smith the First Mormon" by Donna Hill. However the best biographies of Joseph Smith are still to come. But any serious person who wants to study the life of Joseph Smith must look at this one by George Q. Cannon.

This biography on the Prophet Joseph is the best biography written. President Cannon knew the Prophet personally which adds to his insights. With the exception of the biograpy by his mother, all other biogrpahies are repeats of President Cannon's.