Biographies

"PARLEY P. PRATT: THE APOSTLE PAUL OF MORMONISM." By Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow. Oxford University Press. $34.95.

It's been a long wait for a biography of Parley P. Pratt, the irascible, in-your-face 19th-century Mormon apostle who, like the man he idolized, LDS founder Joseph Smith, met his end via assassination. Not even a Deseret Book hagiography has been published. Mass market accounts of Pratt's complex life have been relegated to his autobiography, an exciting first-person account that is selectively edited, mostly omitting his marriage and family life and providing virtually no details of his death at the hands of a cuckold whose wife Pratt had added to his polygamous family. A mediocre biography, published 75 years ago, is virtually forgotten.