BYU Studies

Mormon Studies

With stories that include spiritualist séances, conspiracy, and an important church trial, Wayward Saints chronicles the 1870s challenge of a group of British Mormon intellectuals to Brigham Young’s leadership and authority. William S. Godbe and his associates protested Young’s demanding community and resented what they perceived to be Young’s intrusion into matters of personal choice.

Excommunicated from the church, they established the “New Movement,” which eventually failed. Both a study in intellectual history and an investigation of religious dissent, Wayward Saints explores nineteenth century American spiritualism as well as the ideas and intellectual structure of first- and second-generation Mormonism.

Distributed for BYU Studies.

Ronald W. Walker is the author of Nearly Everything Imaginable: The Everyday Life of Utah's Mormon Pioneers and Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collections.