John H. Gilbert, the Book of Mormon typesetter and then non-Latter-day Saint, was asked: “How do you account for the production of the Book of Mormon, Mr. Gilbert, then, if Joseph Smith was so illiterate?” He answered: “Well, that is the difficult question. It must have been from the Spaulding romance – you have heard of that, I suppose. The parties here then never could have been the authors of it, certainly.”

William H. Kelley, Saints’ Herald – Volume 28, “The Hill Cumorah, and the Book of Mormon” (Lamoni, Decatur County, IA: Saints’ Herald Publishing, 1 June 1881), 166.