Roberts a fascinating 'Apprentice'

HISTORY'S APPRENTICE: THE DIARIES OF B.H. ROBERTS, 1880-1898, edited by John Sillito, Signature Books, 348 pages, $100.

As a 25-year-old LDS missionary in rural Tennessee, B.H. Roberts recorded his self-doubts in his journal, labeling his "misdeeds" with his talents, "on the small order."

Roberts wrote: "I have made attempts to accomplish something in various directions, but 'miserable failure' is written across the face of each of them."

Roberts, who was destined to be a legend as a politician, theologian, scholar and historian — as well as a member of the First Council of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — was much too hard on himself.

According to John Sillito, editor of "History's Apprentice," a newly published collection of Roberts' journals, which he kept from his 20s to his 40s, he "remained dissatisfied with himself and occasionally suffered bouts of depression."

For most LDS readers, Roberts will be best remembered for his seven-volume "Comprehensive History" of the LDS Church — but he was much more diverse than that in his writings, his interests and his major impact on the early development of Utah.

Roberts was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, although he was denied his congressional seat because he was a practicing polygamist. (He had three wives and was the father of 15 children, so his descendants are numerous.) And because he was a Democrat, he occasionally differed from other LDS authorities, most of whom were Republicans.

Roberts wrote, among other things, a biography of John Taylor; a three-volume theological study, entitled "New Witnesses for God"; a six-volume history of Mormonism, "Studies of the Book of Mormon"; and "The Truth, the Way and the Life." Because he was a man of letters, he was active in keeping a journal for much of his life.

Sillito, who is archivist and curator of special collections and professor of libraries at Weber State University in Ogden, and a respected and prolific scholar, has devoted an immense amount of time to assembling and editing these diaries. He has included an erudite introduction, numerous informative notations about the diaries, many wonderful photos of Roberts and members of his family, a useful index, and a set of maps designating the areas where Roberts lived.