101 Questions on the Sanctuary and on Ellen White

78. Ellen White Acknowledges Her Literary Borrowing

Did Mrs. White ever acknowledge her literary borrowing elsewhere than in the introduction to The Great Controversy? QSEW 73.3

Not that we are aware of. The Great Controversy was the first of the five “Conflict” books to be published, and it is the only one to contain an introduction from her own pen. It may be that Ellen White intended for The Great Controversy introduction to be considered as an introduction to the whole series of five books. QSEW 73.4

Ellen White seems not to have considered paraphrasing an irregular procedure for an author, or that this should require acknowledgment. W. C. White speaks of her “habit of using parts of sentences found in the writings of others and filling in a part of her own composition.” He says that this “habit” was not questioned by anyone until about the year 1885. Even then, he says, “when critics pointed out this feature of her work as a reason for questioning the gift which had enabled her to write, she paid little attention to it” (Selected Messages 3:460). QSEW 73.5

W. C. White once agreed with his brother that it would be proper to use the paraphrasing method, as paraphrasing would eliminate the need for quotation marks and, presumably, of credit lines. He advised Edson: QSEW 73.6

“Regarding ‘Past, Present and Future’ [an Edson White book] we are very much interested in what you have written regarding the suggestions made by our brethren in Washington and your intention to rewrite those portions of the book in which numerous quotations are made from Mother’s writings and other writers of our denominational books.... I am inclined to believe that Dores Robinson has a good gift for this work of restating the truths brought out in Mother’s writings and the writings of other authors so that it can be used without quotations.”—W. C. White to J. E. White, March 19, 1913. QSEW 74.1