Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$250.00 + shipping
Description: 72pp. Duodecimo [19 cm] 1/4 brown cloth over cream printed boards. Very good. Gentle age toning to boards. Second Deseret Alphabet primer, and one-of-four books printed by Brigham Young and the LDS Church in the Deseret Alphabet. Illustrations from the 'Wilson Readers.' "[Brigham] Young therefore directed George D. Watt, an Englishman, and an early Mormon convert, to create a new alphabet based on English language phonic values. Watt may have been Young's personal secretary. What is certain is that he was an expert in the then-new and very popular Pitman system of shorthand. The alphabet assignment was handed to Watt in 1853, and by the following year he was able to lay before Young a 32 - character system (eventually increased to 38)" - Wentz, Roby 'Thirty-eight Mormon Characters' p.12.
Seller: Tschanz Rare Books, Salt Lake City, UT, U.S.A.
Price: US$300.00 + shipping
Description: Deseret alphabet. Flake 2817 Good with slight crack in front hinge. Covers are lightly soiled, and there is a slight pucker in rear cover near spine. Several pages dog-eared 1/4 Black cloth over orange paper-covered boards
Seller: Weller Book Works, A.B.A.A., Salt Lake City, UT, U.S.A.
Price: US$600.00 + shipping
Description: VG lt. rubbed black cloth spines, printed paper over board sides. 2 parts;19 cm. First reader, 36, [2] pages. Salmon paper sides, lower cover lightlyrubbed. Second reader, 72, [2] pages. Gray paper sides lightly stained andfrayed along edges. Woodcut vignettes in text and a leaf of errata at theend of each book. (Flake 2817-18) Text entirely in Deseret alphabet exceptfor table of equivalent sounds on p. 3 of each book and for note in Secondreader at foot of p. 72: `The illustrations used in the First and Second Books are selected from [Marcius] Willson's Readers (so justly popular, and so universally used in the Territory), by the kind permission of the authorand publisher.' The printed front covers have a beehive at the top, domestic scenes at the sides, and the Salt Lake Temple at the foot, connected withvines. Although the Temple of which the cornerstone had been set in 1853 is shown here as finished, work was diverted in 1868 to the Union Pacific Railroad, and the walls had been raised only 20 feet above ground by the timeof Brigham Young's death in 1877. The completed Temple was dedicated in 1893. Binding is Hardcover.
Seller: Alec R. Allenson, Inc., Westville, FL, U.S.A.