The first paperback edition of the classic biography of the founder of the Mormon church, this book attempts to answer the questions that continue to surround Joseph Smith. Was he a genuine prophet, or a gifted fabulist who became enthralled by the products of his imagination and ended up being martyred for them? 24 pages of photos. Map.

Fawn M. Brodie (1915–1981), raised in Utah, was a biographer and history professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. She was the author of five biographies, four of which incorporate Freudian psychology, including No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, Thaddeus Stevens: Scourge of the South, and her bestseller, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History.