Sinners and Saints

First published in 1883, Sinners and Saints is British journalist Phil Robinson's witty and observant travelogue of a journey across the United States. Beginning with a train ride from New York toward Chicago, Robinson turns his sharp eye and dry humor on American landscapes, small towns, and fellow passengers before heading west into the heart of Mormon country. The bulk of the book recounts his three months living among the Latter-day Saints in Utah, where he traveled through Salt Lake City and rural settlements such as Manti, Glenwood, Monroe, Marysville, Kingston, and Orderville, offering a rare outsider's account of Mormon communities, customs, and personalities — including a chapter devoted to frontier missionary Jacob Hamblin. Blending personal anecdote with social commentary, Robinson's narrative captures both the humor and the contradictions of a rapidly developing American frontier, making it a valuable historical portrait of the American West and 19th-century Mormon society.