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About the Verseless Book of Mormon

Inspired by Bibliotheca, a beautifully laid-out verseless edition of the Bible, I decided to apply a similar layout and formatting for the Book of Mormon.

The source text is the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon found on Gutenberg. The current version used by the Church of Latter Day Saints is under copyright. If you are interested in the changes between versions, you can find a listing here.

My Process, Edits, and Editions

I've used a script to strip out the verse numbers and extraneous line breaks. I kept the division by chapters.

I've chosen ColdStyle for the font in the PDF version. The font gives the feel of a nineteenth century printing where the type has seen better days, but does so while still being quite readable.

Paragraphs are created where the text seems to indicate. When in doubt, I referred to the original verse structure to determine breaks, but most paragraphs will combine verses.

Dialogue is broken out into its own paragraphs. Quotation marks, missing from the original, are added.

I have made some light edits to the original text. For the most part, this involved removing most instances of "And it came to pass." If you have previously read the Book of Mormon, you will already know this phrase is used constantly. I've left a few of these instances intact for the sake of flavor, but I've removed the majority of them. Since my project is at least partly aimed at non-Mormon readers, I think this change will greatly improve readability.

The other edits are also very light. A few changes to punctuation, a removal of a few redundant sentences, and in a few cases I've added a word or two to clarify who is speaking in a dialogue or sermon.

I've left the original spelling intact.

The final version of the Verseless Book of Mormon will come in two editions: one with my edits and one without. I'll also post a detailed list of the changes when the project is finished.