This History and Commentary has been written to fill the need of the Latter-day Saints for an up-to-date, comprehensive history and commentary on the Pearl of Great Price. The popular and respected histories and commentaries of the past are either out of print or were printed before 1981 when the new edition of the Pearl of Great Price was published. Considerable research in recent years has provided exciting new insights that update the historical material relied upon by previous publications. But perhaps the most significant contribution of this work is its unique collection of primary sources for doctrinal commentary on the Pearl of Great Price: statements of members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

This book is divided into two major sections: the history and the commentary. The history section explains the origin and development of the Pearl of Great Price; the origins of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, from which the book of Moses and Joseph Smith-Matthew were extracted; the coming forth of the book of Abraham from its entombment in Egypt until it was safely in the hands of the Prophet Joseph Smith; the origin and development of the history of the Church written by the Prophet, a segment of which is found in the Pearl of Great Price as Joseph Smith-History; and the origin of the Articles of Faith. The commentary is the larger portion of this work. It contains three categories of quotations. The first category is statements selected from the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who are the Lord's authorized teachers of the scriptures. The second category is scripture references selected from the standard works to support the topic under which they are listed. They ar not the only scripture references that pertain to a particular topic but are some of the more closely related ones. The third category is commentary from General Authorities other than members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and from historians and others who are knowledgeable on a given topic. Naturally, a work such as this one cannot contain all the relevant quotations that are available. In all three categories, choices had to be made about what to include. I alone am responsible for the final choices.