Book collectors always want the first edition. But the later editions often have corrections, so authors prefer that you read later editions. Actually, sometimes first editions have egregious mistakes (either through carelessness of author or proofreader, or through weird gremlins that inevitably bedevil the editorial/printing process); and of course, collectors prize those editions for their lovely mistakes. Authors, of course, find something a bit perverse in that. As it turns out, I was able to make a few minor corrections in the second printing of In Sacred Loneliness (which appeared in approximately late February or early March, 1998). However, if you have the first edition, you can enter these corrections in your copy, thus having the best of both worlds.

If you don't know which edition you have, the easiest way to check is by looking on p. iv. In the middle of the page, after the copyright notice, if you have 6 5 4 3 2 1, you have the first edition. If you have 6 5 4 3 2, you have the second edition. Also, the seated women on the cover (Zina Huntington Young, Emily Partridge Young, and Eliza R. Snow Young) are much more visible on the second edition cover, because there were technical difficulties in the first edition.

1. p. xi: line 4: add "early Mormons" after "celebrate"; change "that" to an em-dash, so it reads: "celebrate early Mormons in a responsible, balanced way--all of its characters"

2. p. xv: Sillitoe should be Sillito

3. p. xv: four lines down from Sillito: add "always" after "me to". So it should read: "always shoot the sheriff"

4. p. 6, #21: "Woodward," not "Woodard"

5. p. 82, line 9: "new coat" should be underlined, not italicized

6. p. 115: 5 lines from bottom: "Capt" should be underlined, not italicized

7. p. 209, first line: add "but" after "matter."

8. p. 259, heading for VI. "Jabez", not "Jabeez"

9. p. 338: next to last full paragraph, 4th line: add ", Wells wrote," after "Mother Whitney" So it should read: Mother Whitney, Wells wrote, "was quite

10. p. 340: ten lines from top: add "will" after "they" It should read: "On the other hand, they will remember"

11. p. 349: first full paragraph, second line: change "marriage" at the end of the line to "union"

12. p. 524: middle of first full paragraph: change "few days of attacks" to "few days of them"

13. p. 575: line 10 from top. excise "visit" (it should read: "walked with Zina to Willard's grave")

14. p. 579: second paragraph of section II., 8th line. excise first "so" (it should read: "version often entailed"

15. p. 599: second full paragraph, 8th line: put accent over last e of attaché.

16. p. 619: 2nd line. change "Nancy (Young)" to "Nancy Greene"

17. p. 629: The first words following the section titles should actually be the first bolded word in the following paragraph. I.e., "Geneology", "Bushman" and "Anti-polygamy novels" should be the first words in their paragraphs, not in the heading.

18. (Same thing: 634, 636, 637.)

19. p. 629: "Geneology" should be changed to "Genealogy"

20. p. 630: middle of page, in section "women leaving polygamy": change "Jeffrey" to "Jeffery"

21. p. 644: toward end of section III., 8th line up: change "previous" to "last". It should read "Compare Introduction, last section"

22. p. 645: section V., 10th line. again, change "Jeffrey" to "Jeffery"

23. p. 673, heading: the last "t" in "Pickett" needs to be changed

24. p. 675: after "coded diary entry." add ", "first deciphered by Art de Hoyos." 25. p. 702: 10 lines from top: put period after "Min" in "RS Min, p. 91"

26. p. 755: chapter title, "Elvira" and "Holmes" should be capitalized.

27. p. 778: add p. 254 to (Kimball), Mary Fielding (Smith)