My information in this post comes from "Lucy's Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith's Family Memoir" edited by Lavina Fielding Anderson, copyright 2001. The publisher, Signature Books, has been gracious enough to provide us with this online typescript of the entire book, which as far as I am aware is the only full online source for the words of Lucy's original hand-written manuscript:

http://signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=9327

In the year after her son, the prophet, died, Lucy sat down and scribbled out the entire history of her family - with particular emphasis on her son Joseph's life. Thanks to her insight and thoroughness, this document has provided us with incredibly valuable insight and details into the beginnings of mormonism that we find in no other source. For instance, only in this document do we know anything about the 1829 trial.

On October 8, 1845, Lucy became the first woman to speak at the general conference of the church (and, incidently, the last until 1988). The mood was very tense. Four months earlier she had received a revelation that William was going to be prophet. However, just two days prior William was dropped from the quorum. In a strategic move to re-establish her authority, she called on the congregation to sustain her as a mother in Israel. The congregation unanimously voted yes. She then began to relate the details of her family's history, moving the congregation to tears, and for the first time announced that she had committed the history to paper and wished it published.

Over the next few years Lucy had some major fallings-out with Brigham Young and church leadership, particularly when it came to matters involving William. She had supported Joseph fully and fiercely through all sorts of persecutions and tribulations. Now William was the only son she had left. Why would she abandon him, just because Brigham and the other apostles hated him?

After Lucy's death, Brigham Young called her "“old and forgetful," saying that she “could scarcely recollect anything correctly," and called her memoir “a tissue of falsehoods.”

The manuscript found its way into the hands of the apostle Orson Pratt, who took it with him to England. In 1853 he published "Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations" which was supposed to be a copy of Lucy's manuscript.

Because the original manuscript has survived to this day, we can now compare this 1853 publication with the original 1844-45 handwritten copy, and the differences are staggering. 14% of the original content was discarded, and large amounts of content were added. In fact, there were so many changes that it is beyond impractical to ever create a list of them. The best way to see the changes is by setting the two documents side-by-side, as is done in the book I linked to above.

To get a flavor for the types of changes that were made, where Lucy only says that in 1823 "Joseph never said many words upon any subject but always seemed to reflect more deeply than common persons of his age upon everything of a religious nature," Pratt has her giving a long description of the religious turmoil and the First Vision, with the closing statement "From this time until the twenty-first of September, 1823, Joseph continued, as usual, to labour with his father, and nothing during this interval occurred of very great importance—though he suffered, as one would naturally suppose, every kind of opposition and persecution from the different orders of religionists."

In 1855 Orson Pratt issued a statement in which he believed that the manuscript "was written under the inspection of the Prophet [Joseph Smith]; but from evidences since received, it is believed that the greater part of the manuscripts did not pass under his review, as there are items which are ascertained to be incorrect."

Even with the staggering revisionist changes to align Lucy's history with the pseudo-history being taught by the Brighamites, Brigham Young was still not pleased with the book. Apparently it was too favorable towards William. In 1865 he ordered the saints to deliver all copies of the book to him to be destroyed. The work remained in that state for the rest of his tenure, as well as his next two successors.

It was Lorenzo Snow who finally authorized the "corrected" edition to be published, and it was Lucy's grandson, Joseph F. Smith, who actually carried it out. In 1902 this version received the title "History of the Prophet Joseph, by His Mother, Lucy Smith, as Revised by George A. Smith and Elias Smith."

In 1945 Preston Nibley took his own crack at an edition, with an update in 1956.

Finally, in 1978, The Tanners wrote a book called "Joseph Smith's History By His Mother: The Book Brigham Young Tried to Destroy," exposing the revisionist history to the world. However, it wasn't good enough, for in 1996 a further-tampered version was published by a few faithful mormons called "The Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith By His Mother."

Thanks to Lavina Fielding Anderson, as of 2001 we now have published access to the original document penned by mother Lucy herself, without revisions, and apologists have been scrambling to justify this text ever since.

If you want to read Fair's craptacular response, knock yourself out:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Lucy_Mack_Smith/Biography

I have always been fascinated by this period in American history, and especially any accounts of women's history, so many thanks for posting this.

Thanks for this. Interesting how the FAIR wiki (fair ormonm.org) article you link to cites as further reading the softball book on Smith by Bushman and the ethically questionable, if not outright pandering book on Mormonism by Jan Shipps. We will only give credence to the history that supports the LDS church.

I've been always fascinated by the fact that Lucy's book makes no mention of the First Vision in its original, dictated manuscript. Then when Orson Pratt publishes it in England he inserts the FV in Joseph's own words.

Lucy recounts the Moroni visit (calling him Nephi--just as JS did at first) recounts visions her husband had (one of which is a dead ringer for Lehi's Dream in the BOM) but makes no mention at all of the "monumental" FV.

The edition that the Church finally published is interesting it is prefaced with a note that a committee from the Church has been organized to make changes in Lucy's Book. They say they are doing this because her memory was a bit rusty etc. However they don't mention what was changed but that they revised it so that her testimony would be preserved.

How do you "preserve" someone's testimony by altering it?

Actually, Lucy doesn't name the angel in the original manuscript. Orson Pratt included the name Nephi, obviously borrowing from the canonical version prevalent at the time.