Phil Robinson’s Sinners and Saints: A Tour Across the States, and Round Them, with Three Months among the Mormons is now available on Project Gutenberg. Robinson, a travel correspondent, spent time in Utah in 1882 and later published his impressions, including an account of a General Conference; comments on communities including Salt Lake City, Logan, Provo, and Orderville; and discussions of Indian relations, polygamy, and even “their sobriety (to my great inconvenience).”

This book was brought to my attention by B. H. Roberts, who quotes it in The Life of John Taylor and comments that  “Mr. Robinson is one of the few writers who have endeavored to tell the truth about the Mormons.” Much of the literature on the Mormon pre-statehood Utah experience, whether “for” or “against” the Church, is polemical. As a more-or-less disinterested observer, accepted as honest by a Mormon authority while being published by and for the world at large, Robinson provides a primary source from an uncommon perspective. Hopefully readers will find it valuable.

As always, thanks to all those who proofread and made this work available!