“To every soul will come the searching test, Shall I obey God rather than men? The decisive hour is even now at hand.”
– The Great Controversy Volume IV, p.411
The Great Controversy Volume IV contains the greatest exposition of Bible prophecy. It is convicting, inspiring and revealing. Volume 4 presents an unforgettable panorama of prophecy from the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. to the second coming of Christ and the creation of the new Earth. Whether it was the oppression endured by the reformers at the hand of the Antichrist power, or the Spirit of God moving during the second great awakening in America to unseal the prophecies of Daniel, or the future crisis between the seal of God and the mark of the beast; in all ages Satan has been at war, seeking to deceive and destroy God’s people. God has given this book to man as a gift, that all who desire a knowledge of the truth might not be deceived concerning the issues of The Great Controversy.
After more than a century, the original 1884 Great Controversy is back in print and it has never looked so good! Until this time, only fascimile copies of Volume 4 have been available. These fascimile copies often contain smudged, smeared or faded text, making the book difficult to read. The author stated “in the preparation of this book, competent workers were employed and much money was invested, in order that the volume might come before the world in the best style possible.” (Ellen G. White, Ms 24, 1891, par. 1) Seeing the immeasurable value of this book and it’s incalculable bearing upon the world today, it has been our desire to reprint Volume 4 of The Great Controversy that it may once again “come before the world in the best style possible.“
In 1884 the capabilities of the press were very limited compared to today. In reprinting Volume 4 of The Great Controversy we wanted to preserve the original content while updating only the design and appearance of the book for a modern audience. We believe the appearance of the book should reflect the sacredness of its contents as near as possible. For this reason we chose a classic and yet simple style that enhances the appearance of the book without devaluing it by cheap illustrations or exaggerated design changes.
The text was carefully cross-referenced with a PDF photo-scan of the original 1884 book. Using the computer to analyze the text, we were able to ensure every comma, every capital letter, and every word exactly matched the original book. Only in a few instances were incorrectly spelled words corrected and these corrections are noted in the back of the book.
A beautiful blue foil has been pressed into the cover of the book giving the title a radiant and attractive shimmer of light. The reflective foil draws the attention straight to the title of the book, making it the most distinguished feature of the new design. Rather than a large graphic containing a variety of colors or patterns that fill the cover to make a cheap appeal to the reader, the rich blue color of the foil reflects the light from the environment into the eyes of the beholder, representing to the reader the value and solemnity of the revelations therein.
The front and back covers of The Great Controversy contain text printed with an elegant reflective silver ink which does not draw attention to itself, but salutes the rich blue foil of the book’s title. With the right lighting, the text may even seem to disappear into the white cover leaving the blue foil text to pop out and draw the mind. This combination of subtle silver ink and rich blue foil we found to be complimentary both to the design of the book and the character of its content.
A rich blue dropped capital letter continues the color theme into the text of the book itself. The color drop cap. breaks up the black and white and adds a decorative element to each new chapter heading. This was another subtle and yet effective way to draw the interest of the reader to the text without devaluing the book with unnecessary illustrations or designs.
Unlike most books, the text of The Great Controversy Volume 4 was printed with a high quality industrial grade digital printer with a DPI resolution far exceeding that which was available in the 1800’s. This allows the text to retain bold blacks against the bright white pages while maintaining clean and crisp edges, similar to the style usually found in magazines.
When updating original books or producing new editions the original pagination is often lost due to the complexities that come with new layout and design changes to the book. This is not the case with this reprint of The Great Controversy. We understand the treasure this book is to thousands of people and that it is often cited and referenced in presentations and studies. For these reasons it was of the utmost importance to us that the text on each page of this reprint match the original 1884 volume. Therefore we have made the extra effort to maintain the same pagination as the original 1884 Great Controversy book.
We understand it is almost impossible to reproduce the exact same spacing, margins, text sizes and fonts as the original book in order to preserve pagination. However, we were committed to finding a way to do this and God provided. We found that using center justified text and adjusting the line spacing in very small increments, even by thousandths of an inch, we were able to precisely adjust the amount of text we could fit on each page without changing its size. This small difference in line spacing spread over the entire page makes it nearly indistinguishable to the human eye. In this manner, page by page, we were able to carefully preserve the pagination of the original 1884 volume.
We pray this restored volume of the 1884 classic will continue to be a blessing to you and those you love in these final days of The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan.
“Volume Four of The Great Controversy unmasks the deceptions of Satan, and we may expect that the enemy of all righteousness will put forth every effort in his power to keep away from the people that which unveils his arts.”
– Ellen G. White