Editing First Vision (section)

===Early awareness by Latter Day Saints===
The importance of the First Vision within the [[Latter Day Saint movement]] evolved over time. Early adherents were unaware of the details of the vision until 1840, when the earliest accounts were published in [[Great Britain]]. An account of the First Vision was not published in the United States until 1842, shortly before [[Death of Joseph Smith|Smith's death]]. [[Jan Shipps]] has written that the vision was "practically unknown" until an account of it was published in 1842.<ref>{{harvnb|Shipps|1985|p=30}}. The first extant account of the First Vision is the manuscript account in Joseph Smith, "Manuscript History of the Church" (1839); the first published account is Orson Pratt, "An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions and of the Late Discovery of Ancient American Records" (Edinburgh: Ballantyne and Hughes, 1840); and the first American publication is Smith's letter to John Wentworth in ''[[Times and Seasons]]'' '''3''' (March 1842): 706–08, only two years before Smith's assassination. (These accounts are available {{harvnb|Vogel|1996}})</ref> LDS historian [[Richard Bushman]] wrote, "At first, Joseph was reluctant to talk about his vision. Most early converts probably never heard about the 1820 vision."<ref>{{harvnb|Bushman|2005|p=39}}</ref>