Reid L. Neilson is Assistant Church Historian and Recorder for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Managing Director of the Church History Department. He completed his PhD in religious studies (American religious history emphasis) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an award-winning author and has published over a dozen books.

Nathan N. Waite is an Associate Editorial Manager for the Joseph Smith Papers Project in Salt Lake City. He received an MA in American studies from the University of Utah and previously published A Zion Canyon Reader.

"The geographical register is also helpful and there is a bibliography as well as an extensive index that adds to the usefulness of the edition. The book thereby constitutes a kind of encyclopedia for the LDS history and the pioneer period context from 1849 to 1856." -- Hans Gerald Hödl, University of Vienna, Religious Studies Review

"The book thereby constitutes a kind of encyclopedia for the LDS history and the pioneer period context from 1849 to 1856." -- Hans Gerald Hödl, Religious Studies Review

"Settling the Valley, Proclaiming the Gospel: The General Epistles of the Mormon First Presidency is a helpful, easy to use collection that offers first hand glimpses into the concerns, struggles, and experiences of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the mid 19th century...Beyond Mormon studies, Settling the Valley, Proclaiming the Gospel advances and facilitates scholarship in disciplines as varied as comparative literature, American religious history, history of the American West, religion, missiology, and Native American studies." -- Mitch Nelson, Claremont Graduate University, Reading Religion

"Settling the Valley is a remarkably rich contribution to the study of Mormon and Utah history. It is a handsom volume, with an impressive dust jacket, and has set a standard of excellence to which all future editors of similar-type literature and topics can aspite." -- Richard E. Bennett, Journal of Mormon History

"Settling the Valley, Proclaiming the Gospel will be helpful for anyone studying Brigham Young, mid-nineteenth-century Church leadership, and pioneer life in antebellum Utah Territory. Though the epistles can be found separately in archives and some are available online, having them all in one place, footnoted and indexed, will be a welcome resource to any researcher of the era."--Gerrit van Dyk, BYU Studies Quarterly

"[T]he compilation of these important and heretofore hard to find epistles by Neilson and Waite provides priceless access to very important documents that, as I have previously stated, give important access to the thoughts and views of the Brigham Young First Presidency in the 1850s and shed new light for many people on the conditions and experiences of the time. These editors should be commended and thanked for their efforts. Second, the two introductory essays and the footnotes are a great help in understanding these epistles, the language and terms used therein, and the context, history, and events occurring when they were written...This is an excellent and important book."--Association for Mormon Letters