Books and Plays Written By and About Mormon Women

Anderson, Dawn Hall and Marie Cornwall. Women and the Power Within: To See Life Steadily and See it Whole. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1991.

Anderson, Dawn Hall and Marie Cornwall. Women Steadfast in Christ: Talks Selected from the 1991 Women's Conference Co-sponsored by Brigham Young University and the Relief Society. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1992.

Anderson, Lavina Fielding and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective, University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 1987.

Essays and poems by a group of friends who met together in Salt Lake City during the early 1970's.

Barber, Phyllis. And The Desert Shall Blossom. University of Utah Press, 1992.

Historical novel about the construction of the Hoover Dam and a Mormon Family in 1931.

Bartholomew, Rebecca. Audacious Women: Early British Mormon Immigrants. Signature Books, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1995.

Beecher, Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, ed. The Personal Writings of Eliza Roxcy Snow. University of Utah Press: Salt Lake City, 1995.

Publication of the edited diaries and journals of Eliza R. Snow places a spotlight on one of the best known Mormon pioneer women. Contains three distinct works: Snow's trail diairies, her short autobiographical "Sketch of My Life," and her Nauvoo journal and notebook, as well as dozens of her emotionally revealing poems.

Black, Susan Easton. Membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 1830-1848.

Susan Black's 50 volume work lists and describes church members and is considered a major reference work in the Family History Library

---. Leaving Home. Signature Books, 1987.

A book of essays which give a glimpse into Mary Bradford's life.

Bradford, Mary, ed. Personal Voices. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987.

A valuable compilation of twenty years worth of personal essays from the pages of Dialogue.

Brodie, Fawn M. No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet. Alfred A. Knopf, 1945.

One of the most important books in Church history and biography. Brodie's book has had a widespread iimpact on the perception of Joseph Smith and Mormonism within and without the Church.

Brooks, Juanita. The Mountain Meadows Massacre. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1950.

Historical book about the part John D. Lee played in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

---, editor. Not by Bread Alone. 1978.

Jane Edwards says, "Historians consider Martha Spence Heywood's diary of the years 1850 to 1856 one of the best personal accounts of that period in Utah. Her ambivalence about Nephi and her rigorous self-examinatiuon demonstrated more than Joseph Heywood's integrity."

Bushman, Claudia L., ed. Mormon Sister: Women in Early Utah. Emmeline Press Limited, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1976.

Burgess-Olson, Vicky. Sister Saints. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1978.

Bushman, Claudia, et al. Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah, Cambridge, Mass.: Emmeline Press Ltd., 1976.

Cannon, Ann Edwards. Amazing Gracie. New York: Dell Publ., 1991.

---. Cal Cameron by Day, Spider-Man by Night.

---. The Shadow Brothers. New York: Delacorte Press, 1990.

Cannon, Elaine. As a Woman Thinketh Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, Inc., 1990.

Card, Orsen Scott. A Woman of Destiny (a k a Saints).

Davidson, Karen Lynn. Thriving on our Differences. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1990.

Elgin, Kathleen. The Mormons: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, David McKay: sl., date unknown.

Ellsworth, S. George. Dear Ellen: Two Mormon Women and Their Letters. Tanner Trust Fund, University of Utah Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1974.

Embry, Jessie L. Black Saints in a White Church: Contemporary African American Mormons. Signature Books, Salt Lake City, Utah, 199?.

Embry, Jessie L. Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle. University of Utah Press, 1987.

An analysis of the dynamics of Mormon polygamous families which begins with monogamous Mormon families, moves to Victorian American family life, and also has a cross-cultural comparison with African polygyny.

Fitzgerald, John D. Papa Married a Mormon.

Frazier, Karen Purser. "Bibliography of Writings About Mormon Women". Provo, Utah: Women's Research Institute; Brigham Young University, 1990.

Freeman, Judith. Family Attractions: Stories, Penguin Books, 1988.

Gates, Susan Young. John Steven's Courtship.

Godfrey, Audrey and Kenneth and Jill Mulvay Derr. Women's Voices: An Untold History of the Latter-Day Saints, 1838-1900. Deseret Books, 1982.

Hanks, Maxine. Women and Authority: Re-emerng Mormon Feminism. Signature Books, Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1992.

Hansen, Jennifer Moulton, ed. Letters of Catherine Cottam Romney, Plural Wife. University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Hammond, Wendy. "The Ghostman" ca.1991.

Heiner, Barta. "Diantha". One-woman play.

Hill, Donna. Joseph Smith, the first Mormon, 1977.

Howe, Susan. "A Dream for Katie". Premiered at the 1992 BYU Women's Conf.

---. "Burdens of Earth". Sunstone, Nov. 1987. Produced at BYU in 1987.

A play exploring Joseph Smith's despair in Libery jail.

Hurd, Jerrie. Leaven: 150 Women in Scripture Whose Lives Lift Ours. Aspen Books, 1995.

---. Our Sisters in the Bible. Deseret Book, 1987.

---. Our Sisters in the Latter-Day Scriptures. Deseret Book, 1987.

---. Miss Ellie's Purple Sage Saloon. Pocket Books, 1995.

A novel of Independent Women on America's Frontier.

Johnson, Sonia. From Housewife to Heretic. Wildfire Books:Albugquerque, N.M., reprinted 1989, 1981.

Kimball, Camilla Eyring. Woman to Woman: Selected Talks from the BYU Women's Conferences, Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1986.

Maxwell, Margaret. Sharlot Hall.

Nibley, Preston, ed. History of Joseph Smith by His Mother. Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1958.

Okazaki, Chieko N. Cat's Cradle. Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1993.

---. Lighten Up.

Partridge, Dixie. Deer in the Haystacks. Boise, Idahoe: Boise State University, 1984.

Thirty six poems filled with images of the ravages of farm life and working the land. Many of the poems deal with relations between parents and children.

Pearson, Carol Lynn. Good-bye, I Love You. New York: Random House, 1986.

A best-selling autobiographical account of her husband's homosexuality and eventual death from AIDS.

---. "Mother Wove the Morning". 198?

---. "My Turn on Earth". 197?.

---. One on the Seesaw: The Ups and Downs of a Single-Parent Family. Random House, 1988.

This book deals with being a single parent. She describes moments of frustration as well as rewarding moments.

---. "The Order is Love". 1971

Peterson, Levi S. Juanita Brooks.

Plummer, Louise. My Name is Sus5an Smith, the 5 is Silent. New York: Delacorte Press, 1991.

---. The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman. New York: Delacorte Press, 1995.

Schow, Ron and Wayne Schow and Marybeth Raynes, eds. Peculiar People: Mormons and same-sex orientation., Signature Books, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1991.

Shipps, Jo Ann Barnett. The Mormons in politics: the first hundred years. University Microfilms International: Ann Arbor, 1976.

Sillitoe, Linda. Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders. Salt Lake City: Signature, 1988.

Sorensen, Virginia. The Evening and the Morning

---. A Little Lower Than the Angels

---. Kingdom Come

Sorensen, Virginia. Many Heavens

Sorensen, Virginia. The Proper Gods

Sorensen, Virginia. Where Nothing is Long Ago. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963.

Some consider this her best book, with The Evning and the Morning as a close second.

Smith, Lucy (Mack). Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations. Liverpool: S.W. Richards, 1853.

Lucy Mack Smith's dictated memoirs were published by Orson Pratt in Liverpool in 1853. The book has since been revised twice and is in print under the title History of Joseph Smith by his Mother.

Smith, Mary Ettie V. Mormonism: its rise, progress and present condition . sn:sl., 1870.

Snow, E R. Poems, Religious, Historical, and Political, 2 vols. Vol. 1, Liverpool:F.D. Richards, 1856. Vol2, Salt Lake City: Latter-Day Printing and Publishing Establishments, 1877.

Stenhouse, Mrs. T.B.H. Tell it All. Hartford, Conn: A.D. Worthington and Co., 1875.

Tabor, Susan. Mormon Lives: A Year in the Elkton Ward.

Terry, Keith & Ann. Emma: The Dramatic Biography of Emma Smith. Butterfly Publishing Inc., Santa Barbara, CA, 1979.

Ulrich, Laaurel Thatcher. A Midwife's Tale.

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher and Emma Lou Thayne. All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir. Aspen Books: Salt Lake City, Utah, 1995.

Ward, Maria (pseud). Female Life Among the Mormons. London: C.H. Clarke, 1855.

Ward, Margery W., ed. A Mormon Mother: An Autobiography by Annie Clark Tanner. Tanner Trust Fund, University of Utah Library, Salt Lake City, 1991.

Warenski, Marilyn. Patriarchs and politics: the plight of the Mormon woman, 1978.

Whipple Maurine. The Giant Joshua, Houghton Mifflin, 1941; reissued by Western Epics, Inc., in Salt Lake City in 1976.

Some consider this the best Mormon novel so far published. Dale Morgan calls it "a law unto itself" and says the book "overflows with life" and is "richly rewarding."

Williams, Terry Tempest. Between Cattails. New York: Scribner, 1985.

---. "The Clan of One-Breasted Women." in MS., Sept./Oct. 1991: 31-34.

---. Coyote's Canyon. Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1989.

---. Desert Quartet: An Erotic Landscape. New York: Pantheon, 1995.

---. Pieces of White Shell: A Journey to Navajoland.New York: Scribner, 1984

---. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place.New York: Pantheon, 1991.

---. The Secret Language of Snow. San Francisco: Sierra Club/Pantheon Books, 1984.

---. An Unspoken Hunger: Stories From the Field. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.

---. Desert Quartete: An Erotic Landscape. New York: Pantheon, 1995.

Young, Ann Eliza (Webb). Wife No.19. ArnoPress: New York, reprinted 1972, 1875.

Many thanks to Jim Melo for his help with this bibliography.
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