PH1870 - is the date accurate?

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Tue, 03/31/2015 - 16:53 — timeless

I was just browsing "It Is Well With My Soul" and noticed that the earliest scanned instance is from Precious Hymns. Spafford wrote his lyrics in 1873, yet this hymnal has a claimed publication date of 1870, though I can find no verification for this in the hymnal page scans.


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Wed, 04/01/2015 - 09:48 — dianneshapiro

"Precious Hymns" does not have a date on it. The preface indicates that it was published for the Bethany Sunday School's own use, so they probably saw no need for a copyright date. Library catalogers have made estimations of the date, such as 1800's or 1870-1890? That may be where the DNAH indexers got the date 1870. However, there are orders of worship in the hymnal that are dated 1884. The earliest date for the hymnal would probably be 1885. Library catalogers are selective in what they look at in a book; they typically would not look past the preface to find a date. I have changed the publication date to 1885.

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