"For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light..."

Deseret Book

by Eleanor Knowles

The Deseret Book Company had its beginnings in George Q. Cannon and Sons, a retail bookstore and publishing company established in Salt Lake City in 1866. Cannon was an apostle and a counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After his death in 1901, the company was purchased by the Church's Deseret News and renamed the Deseret News Bookstore. Meanwhile, the Church Sunday school organization began publishing its own lesson manuals and supplementary instructional materials in the early 1870s and later included book publishing and a retail bookstore. The two companies were merged in 1919 and subsequently named the Deseret Book Company.

A subsidiary of the Church's Deseret Management Corporation, the Deseret Book Company has three divisions: retail, publishing, and wholesale. The retail division operates stores in several states in the western United States: Mormon Handicraft, which is a Salt Lake City consignment shop for handmade goods; a book club; an audio- and videotape club; and a mail- and telephone-order shopping service. The publishing division produces books related to family life, history, biography, LDS doctrine and theology, fiction, and inspiration for both children and adults. It also produces audio- and videotapes and compact discs. The wholesale division distributes Deseret Book titles and books from other publishers to retailers throughout the world.

(See Church Participation in Business; Attitudes Towards Business and Wealth home page)

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