This is a reprint of the 1891 edition of John Doyle Lee's autobiography and story of Brigham Young and the earliest days of Mormonism, which was written after Lee's conviction for the 1857 attack on an Arkansas immigrant wagon train camped at Mountain Meadows, Utah, and originally published in 1877. Lee was the only member of the Church of Latter Day Saints to be sentenced for participation in the killing of more than 120 men, women, and children bound for California.

In this writing, Lee described his early Church missions among "gentiles," his work with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and the persecutions endured by Church leaders and followers that compelled them to move West. Bitter over his conviction, Lee blamed Church leaders for the Mountain Meadows murders, calling Brigham Young "the greatest criminal of the nineteenth century."

This reissue includes the original publisher's preface and an introduction by John D. Lee's attorney, W. W. Bishop. Of interest to readers of social and religious history, the book also provides an account of Lee's arrest and execution, transcripts of his trial, and the names of others involved in the Mountain Meadows massacre.