The Joseph Smith Papers, comprising dozens of volumes when complete, will be the largest, most authoritative published collection of Joseph Smith documents anywhere. Although broad in scope, the Papers project has a relatively simple aim: to make available essential sources for the study of early Mormon history and of Joseph Smith—the church president and prophet, the city builder, the civic and military leader, the husband and father. With unprecedented access to Joseph Smith texts, including many never before published, this landmark project provides new information and insights about Joseph Smith, early Mormonism, and nineteenth-century American religion. The documents, topically arranged into several series, include journals, correspondence, sermons, revelations, translations, histories, minutes, and legal and business records. To locate Joseph Smith documents, experts searched significant repositories throughout the United States. Once gathered and organized, the documents are transcribed verbatim and then subjected to a rigorous, three-stage verification process that ensures accuracy. The transcripts are then published unaltered and unabridged, together with textual and contextual annotation. Detailed appendixes in the volumes provide chronologies and maps, geographical directories, and other reference materials to support the text and guide the researcher. This inaugural volume features Joseph Smith's first five journals and reflects the beginning of Mormon record keeping in the church's earliest years. Joseph Smith began recording his first journal in 1832 in a small pocket-size book that he carried along with him during his missionary travels. Studying these personal entries gives the reader an appreciation for Smith's character, including his private piety and love for family. The work of journal keeping was soon thereafter delegated to scribes. As with subsequent journals, Joseph Smith's second journal includes some of the earliest versions of his revelations. Most of this journal, which contains daily entries for six months beginning in late September 1835, was dictated by Smith to scribe Warren Parrish. It provides detailed accounts of meetings and other experiences leading up to and including the dedication of the Kirtland, Ohio, temple in March 1836. The final three journals in this volume, kept by scribes George W. Robinson and James Mulholland, document the origins of the "Mormon War" in Missouri and Joseph Smith's early efforts to establish a new headquarters for the church in Commerce (later Nauvoo), Illinois. Two forthcoming volumes in the Journals series will feature Joseph Smith's lengthy Nauvoo journals, kept primarily by scribes Willard Richards and William Clayton. These journals, covering almost every day of Smith's life from mid-December 1841 to his murder in June 1844, report his activities and discourses as he administered the affairs of a growing church and introduced new religious doctrines while also serving as city mayor and head of the militia. The Joseph Smith Papers Project follows the highest standards of documentary editing and has earned endorsement by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, an agency of the National Archives of the United States.