Joseph F. Smith, the President of the Church, commissioned James E. Talmage, a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, to write this biography on the life of Christ. The idea was to use this book as a home reference and a Church textbook. He more than met the challenge, and this book is still in print almost 100 years later, and is standard work for LDS Missionaries.
This book covers every aspect of Christ as best can be expected in one volume. It begins with Christ premortal existence, his mortal ministry in Palestine, his atonement, and finally his post mortal ministry in the Spirit Word (I believe . . . he was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell) and among the Nephites as recorded in the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
The only two drawbacks with this book are it size, and the verbiage. Elder Talmage was an Englishman, so he spoke with an Englishman's vocabulary. A dictionary solves this problem.
