A 2015 petition preserved by the Washington courts names Corbin T. Volluz as counsel. His Mount Vernon law office describes work in criminal defense and personal injury in western Washington. A very different public record also carries his full name. In 1994 the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies published his article on the plan of redemption in the Book of Mormon, identifying him with Skagit County.
Reading the byline in its setting
The petition belongs to the history of a legal argument advanced on behalf of a client. The journal article belongs to the history of an author’s own reading of a text. Their juxtaposition explains my interest in Volluz more precisely than speculation about his beliefs could do. Both publications can be examined, and both name the person responsible for the words.
The publisher’s reading
As a historian of early Mormon printing, I want a reader to be able to move from an argument about a book to the edition from which someone read it. As a publisher writing about a lawyer, I owe the same attention to the caption and signature on a court paper. Public criticism begins with identifying whose argument is actually before us.