This collection of thirteen essays examines the historical record of the early Latter-day Saint tradition, each chapter focusing on a significant nineteenth-century manuscript or collection. Harry Stout begins the volume with a short essay dedicated to the historian Dean C. Jessee, whose source criticism and manuscript studies transformed Mormon history nearly fifty years ago. Most of the contributors and all three of the volume editors have been involved in the Joseph Smith Papers, and all are experts on the subject of their essays. Seven of the essays look specifically at sources produced by Joseph Smith: his sermons, his prison letters, his journal, the Book of Mormon, revelations, and other sources. Laurel Ulrich Thatcher focuses on the journals of prolific diarist and leader Wilford Woodruff, which was a key source for her A House Full of Females. Two chapters are devoted to sources by women, including the minutes of the Relief Society in Nauvoo and the memoir of Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith. Finally, there are two creative essays looking at early Mormon photographs and paintings as sources and “the gold plates as foundational text”—the latter written by Smith's biographer Richard Bushman.

While Foundational Texts will be an important reference work for the writing of early Latter-day Saint history, several of the chapters use the manuscript in question to move forward a fresh argument of their own. Thomas Wayment's contribution on Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, demonstrating Smith's dependence on nineteenth-century commentaries, is particularly significant. The same is true of the essay on the textual development of Smith's revelations written by Grant Underwood. Ronald O. Barney's concluding essay drives home a point that will be surprising to many historians of American religion. While numerous historians have praised the record-keeping impulse among early Mormons, Barney argues that there is actually a lack of sources around many key spiritual events. Acknowledging the limits of the source record is a fascinating way to finish the celebration of the rich documentary record of early Mormonism. Altogether this volume makes a fine contribution to the study of Latter-day Saints in the nineteenth century and will prove an essential among historians tackling the records of the period.