Penny Tracts and Polemics: A Critical Analysis of Anti-Mormon Pamphleteering in Great Britain, 1837-1860

By 1860, Mormonism had enjoyed a presence in Great Britain for over twenty years. Mormon missionaries had experienced an unprecedented success in conversions and many new converts had left Britain's shores for a new life and a new religion in the far western mountains of the American continent. With the unprecedented success of the Mormons had come tales of duplicity, priestcraft, sexual seduction and uninhibited depravity among the new religious adherents. Thousands of pamphlets with sensational titles such as, The Gates of the Mormon Hell Opened!..., Appalling Disclosures! Mormon Revelations, Being the History of Fourteen Females..., The Prophets; or, Mormonism Unveiled, and, Female Life Among the Mormons were sold or given to the British populace as a way of discouraging people from joining the Mormon Church. Foster places the creation of these English anti-Mormon pamphlets in their historical context. He discusses the authors, the impact of the publications and the Mormon response. With illustrations and detailed bibliography.