Review
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Title: The Latter-Day Saint Image in the British Mind
Authors: Malcolm Adcock and Fred E. Woods
Publisher: Greg Kofford Books
Genre: Religious Non-Fiction
Year Published: 2022
Number of Pages: 204
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1589585584
Price: $26.95
Reviewed by Conor Hilton for the Association for Mormon Letters
Malcolm Adcock and Fred E. Woods’ The Latter-Day Saint Image in the British Mind is fast-paced and wide-ranging, packed with fascinating tidbits for all students of Mormon history. The book covers the interactions between the Church and its members and the people of Britain from the Church’s founding until the present. The slim volume is a quick read, giving both insightful details and frequently leaving me wanting more—the footnotes are promising for future research diving into the areas I was particularly interested in, though the frequency of interviews cited that the authors conducted have me wishing for a companion volume of Adcock and Woods’ interviews and notes edited and gathered together.
The book moves chronologically through history, often by decade with some larger spans of time, especially for the earlier chapters.
Adcock and Woods’ weave together elements of institutional history (official statements, visits, and actions by the Church), personal interviews and journal entries, political events, and pop culture artifacts to tell an engaging story. The trajectory overall is one of strong resistance and antipathy to respect and cooperation, with The LDS Image highlighting the ways that this cycle has often been recurring in Britain.
Given the book’s fast pace, a taste of some of the details and tidbits that it includes will offer a better sense of whether this book is for you.
- Notes from newspapers, like this 1933 ad for a British breakfast cereal: “‘All the wives a Mormon ever had couldn’t prepare a better breakfast than you get in Scott’s Porage Oats.’” (30). Earlier the book includes a description of early Mormons chasing after white stones from a nineteenth-century London newspaper (the sort of description that strikes me as great food for a short story, while being clearly inaccurate).
- Detailed accounts of the London temple open house and dedication, including a note from Gordon B. Hinckley about needing to bail out the basement with Selvoy J. Boyer prior to the dedication from a partial flood. (37-38)
- Lots of great details about and from the Osmonds. Including a story from Donny about Paul McCartney asking for his autograph for his daughter and Donny needing to follow up with Paul years later because the story felt more like a dream (85).
Malcolm Adcock and Fred E. Woods’ The Latter-Day Saint Image in the British Mind is for Latter-Day Saint Anglophiles with an interest in fascinating historical tidbits. If you are wanting a deep dive into any one of the historical areas covered by Adcock and Woods, this may be a good place to start, with robust footnotes to follow, though the book is more of a broad overview than a detailed examination of any one historical period or event. The book clearly has a fondness for the Church and approaches it throughout with a gentle touch, making the book accessible to a wide range of Latter-Day Saints and perhaps less of interest to those wanting a more critical vantage point. The Latter-Day Saint Image in the British Mind piqued my curiosity on a variety of subjects, giving a tantalizing taste of many subjects, all while offering an engaging overview of how the Church fits into the British imagination throughout its history.