Added Upon: A Story

In Short

First published in 1898, this early Latter-day Saint novel charts the theological and physical journey of human souls across four distinct realms of existence. Beginning in a pre-mortal spirit world where spirits choose between Christ and Lucifer, the story moves to a late nineteenth-century Western frontier where its characters face farm foreclosures, poverty, and religious conversion. Following their mortal deaths, the narrative expands into the spirit world and concludes in a peaceful, resurrected Millennial earth. Nephi Anderson’s story has endured as a classic piece of devotional fiction, pioneering the imaginative dramatization of Latter-day Saint theology regarding human destiny.

The Story

The narrative opens in the pre-mortal spirit realm, where human spirits dwell in the presence of God. When a grand council is convened to announce the plan for their earth life—their second estate—Lucifer proposes a plan of compulsory salvation that appeals to many who wish to avoid effort and law. A war of ideas ensues. Michael and the First Born lead the faithful spirits who choose free agency, law, and growth through earthly trial, while Lucifer and his followers are cast out, and a third group remains hesitant and neutral. The loyal spirits are promised that they will take on tabernacle bodies of flesh on a newly created earth.

The scene shifts to mortality on the American frontier. Rupert Ames is a fifteen-year-old boy living with his mother and sister in a leaky log hut amidst the sagebrush desert of Dry Bench. Through sheer hard work, Rupert helps build irrigation canals and reservoirs, transforming the dry benchland into a flourishing agricultural community named Willowby. As a young man, Rupert becomes a successful farmer and city alderman, but his prosperity attracts the scheming schoolteacher Virginia Wilton. Driven by ambition, Rupert overextends himself in real estate investments, mortgages the family farm, and is utterly ruined when a financial panic hits and the local bank fails.

Devastated and penniless, Rupert wanders away from Willowby and finds labor on the farm of Mr. Janson, a Swedish immigrant in the Chamogo valley. There he meets Signe Dahl, a devout Norwegian woman who radiates spiritual peace. Signe, who previously rejected the advances of the wealthy landlord Henrik Bogstad in Norway to pursue her education and faith, introduces Rupert to the restored gospel. Rupert accepts the faith, recovers his strength, and marries Signe in a Latter-day Saint temple. Meanwhile, back in Norway and Minnesota, Henrik Bogstad and his cousin Rachel also embrace the gospel despite fierce family persecution and social ostracization.

As the years pass, the characters cross the threshold of mortal death and enter the spirit world. In Paradise, spirits retain their individual personalities, continuing their education, overcoming moral weaknesses, and preaching the gospel to those in darkness. Rupert works as a preacher among the spirits, while Signe and Rachel guide newcomers. Eventually, the characters receive their resurrected bodies through temple ordinances performed by the living. The narrative culminates in the Millennium, a thousand-year period of peace on earth where Satan is bound, resurrected beings serve as teachers, labor is limited to a few hours a day, children play safely with once-savage beasts, and faithful souls achieve eternal exaltation, adding glory upon glory forever.

How It Unfolds

The council in heaven Spirits gather in their first estate to hear the Father’s plan for mortal life, sparking a great divide as Lucifer advocates for painless, lawless salvation while Christ and Michael champion agency, progression, and law.

Hardship on the dry bench In a leaky log hut surrounded by sagebrush, young Rupert Ames works through a pouring rainstorm to patch his mother’s mud roof, setting the stage for years of labor to bring water and prosperity to his family's farm.

Boom and financial collapse Rupert rises to become a wealthy farmer and city alderman in Willowby, but speculation in real estate and the sudden failure of the town bank strip him of his property, leaving him crushed by debt and despair.

Conversion in the valley While working as a hired hand for a Scandinavian family, Rupert meets Signe Dahl, whose singing and teaching of scripture lead him to embrace the gospel and find spiritual redemption.

Persecution in the old world In Norway, Henrik Bogstad faces the bitter rage of his mother and sister when he accepts the Latter-day Saint faith, choosing social disgrace and exile over the comfort of his family's wealth.

Ministry in the spirit world After passing through mortal death, the departed souls enter Paradise, where Rupert preaches to untaught spirits while Signe and Rachel mentor newly arrived souls struggling to let go of earthly errors.

The millennial earth The story closes in a redeemed world where resurrected human beings live alongside peaceful animals, labor four hours a day, and teach children that existence is an unending journey of eternal progression.

The People

• Rupert Ames begins as a dutiful frontier boy who builds a prosperous life through agricultural labor, but his desire for rapid wealth leads to financial ruin. Through his collapse, he learns humility, accepts the gospel in the Chamogo valley, and eventually matures into a spiritual leader and preacher both on earth and in the spirit world.
• Signe Dahl is a pious Norwegian woman of humble origins who values spiritual truth over material wealth, rejecting a wealthy suitor in Norway. Her quiet serenity and deep knowledge of scripture guide Rupert out of his despair, and she stands by him as his wife through mortality and into Paradise.
• Henrik Bogstad is a prosperous Norse gentleman who initially seeks Signe’s hand, but later discovers the gospel for himself. He willingly endures the hostility and rejection of his mother, sister, and uncle to gather with the Saints and perform temple work for his ancestors.
• Rachel is Henrik's cheerful cousin in Minnesota, considered a rebellious girl by her strictly religious father, who finds joy and purpose after accepting Henrik's testimony and dedicating her life and post-mortal existence to missionary service.

In Its Own Voice

"A religion, to be worth while, must give satisfactory answers to the great questions of life: What am I? Whence came I? What is the object of this life? and what is my destiny?"

— From the author's preface, establishing the philosophical and theological purpose behind the narrative.

"'I thought I heard old Reddy's bell,' she said, looking up to her mother."

— A moment of domestic life in the leaky log cabin during Rupert's impoverished youth on the dry bench.

"'What are these men's working hours?' asked Remand."

— A question posed by a visiting king observing the organized, restful society of the resurrected Saints during the earth's millennial Sabbath.

What It's Really About

Underneath its traditional narrative of Western frontier survival and conversion, Added Upon is an extended theological argument about the nature of human identity and eternal progression. The novel asserts that human life is neither an accident nor a brief, isolated test, but an essential middle phase in a continuous, law-governed evolution. Anderson argues that suffering, labor, and financial loss are vital trials designed to strip away vanity and refine individual character. True freedom, according to the book, is not found in Lucifer's promise of unearned ease, but in voluntary obedience to divine law, which allows human beings to grow continually in knowledge, affection, and creative power across multiple estates of existence.

Why Read It Today

Added Upon offers modern readers an illuminating window into late nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint culture and thought. Written by one of the earliest novelists of the faith, it captures the rural Western migration experience, the immigrant Scandinavian presence in early Utah and Minnesota, and the earnest devotional atmosphere of the period. Readers who enjoy Victorian religious fiction, historical theology, or early American regional literature will find it an intriguing artifact.

The book’s language reflects the earnest, romantic style of the late 1800s, complete with occasionally sentimental dialogue, period Scandinavian dialect, and explicit doctrinal expositions that halt the narrative action to explain scripture. It does not attempt modern psychological subtlety; its characters represent clear moral types, and its plot moves quickly across cosmic epochs. Yet, despite its didactic nature, the novel possesses a genuine warmth and an expansive vision of human destiny. It stays with the reader as a earnest attempt to map the entirety of human existence—from pre-mortal light to post-mortal glory—within the scope of a short, accessible story.