num_pages: 432
description: Winner of the Evans Biography Award, the Mormon History Association Best Book Award, and the John Whitmer Association (RLDS) Best Book Award . Mormon Enigma is the bestselling biography of Emma Hale Smith, wife of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. It was Joseph Smith who announced that an angel of the Lord had commanded him to introduce a 'new order of marriage.' And it was Emma Hale Smith who confronted the practice of polygamy head on. As the authors note in their introduction, "Early leaders in Utah castigated Emma from their pulpits for opposing Brigham Young and the practice of polygamy, and for lending support to the Reorganization. As these attitudes filtered down through the years, Emma was virtually written out of official Utah histories. In this biography, we have attempted to reconstruct the full story of this remarkable and much misunderstood woman's experiences.
language: English
title: Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith
titlecomplete: Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith
genres: Biography, Church, History, Mormonism, American History, Religion, Church History, Lds, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir
ratings_count: 1046
awards: awardedAt: 441792000000
name: Evans Biography Award
publisher: University of Illinois Press