Publishing Ventures

While her written works would become Ellen White's lasting legacy, it was not until several months after her first vision that her “trembling hand” was able to hold a pen “steadily”—an accomplishment she attributed to God's special intervention. Her physical condition had become so debilitated by her childhood accident that “up to this time” (early 1845) she “could not write.” “While in vision,” she wrote, “I was commanded by an angel to write the vision. I attempted it, and wrote readily. My nerves were strengthened, and my hand became steady.”^{13E. G. White, Spiritual Gifts [vol. 2], p. 60.} Her writing continued for nearly 70 years.1EGWLM 16.1

The earliest extant communication of any type by Ellen White (still Ellen Harmon at the time) was a printed letter dated December 20, 1845, addressed to the editor of the Day-Star, a Millerite paper published in Cincinnati, Ohio.^{14Day-Star, Jan. 24, 1846, pp. 31, 32.} She concluded her letter, which reported the scenes of her first vision (and a subsequent one concerning the new earth), with the note “This was not written for publication; but for the encouragement of all who may see it, and be encouraged by it.” Even so, the editor, Enoch Jacobs, decided to publish her account “at the request of many friends that have heard it read.”^{15Ibid., p. 32. In March Jacobs published a second letter from Ellen—this time one that she specifically requested he print in order to give readers a more complete record “of what God has revealed to me” (Day-Star, Mar. 14, 1846, p. 21, 22). The letter is dated Feb. 15, 1846.}1EGWLM 16.2

As interest increased in this 18-year-old's visionary experiences, supporters circulated her visions inexpensively through “broadsides”—large sheets of paper, usually printed on one side.^{16Three broadsides containing her visions are known and included in this collection under the dates of Apr. 6, 1846, Apr. 7, 1847, and Jan. 31, 1849.} In May 1847 James White (now married to Ellen) included three communications from his wife in his 24-page pamphlet A Word to the “Little Flock,” but it was not until August 1851 that most of Ellen White's earliest writings would be collected into book form and published as A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Ellen G. White.^{17Reprinted in 1882 with minor editorial revisions and published since as part of Early Writings (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald, 2000).}1EGWLM 16.3

Even prior to her first book, however, several of Ellen's visions reached Sabbatarian Adventists through the “little paper” that James White launched in response to one of his wife's visions. He issued 11 numbers of The Present Truth between July 1849 and November 1850, six of which contained communications from Ellen White. Five years later Ellen published her first Testimony for the Church—a 16-page pamphlet that launched a series of published “testimonies”^{18A term used to refer to “a communication of counsel and instruction given by Ellen G. White, either orally or in writing, to an individual, to a congregation, or to Seventh-day Adventists in general” (SDAE, s.v. “Testimony”).} that eventually comprised nine volumes and nearly 5,000 pages. Four more Testimony numbers would be printed between 1856 and 1859. Several articles also appeared in the Review and Herald and the monthly Youth's Instructor, the latter having begun in 1852.1EGWLM 16.4