Ellen G. White and Her Critics

The Total of Literary Borrowing in “The Great Controversy”

According to the charge, The Great Controversy “was taken largely” from other works. Mrs. White definitely indicates in her preface that the borrowed part was both small in amount and secondary in significance. In our examination of The Great Controversy we shall take the 1911 edition—known as the new edition —as our guide and standard, because, according to the critics themselves, this edition gives “proper credit to the authors from which she had plagiarized so much.” The paging of this 1911 edition is almost identical with that of the 1888, or old edition, as is also the text. Hence it is a simple task to compare quotations. Furthermore, the 1884 edition—The Spirit of Prophecy, volume 4—is sufficiently similar to the 1888 and 1911 editions, in subject sequence, and sometimes in construction, to enable us to make comparisons. EGWC 419.2