Most travelers to Utah during the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, especially those from Europe, were curious about the
state’s community of Latter-day Saints, with their “seventeenstrong
families with only one man!” This collection of the
writings of some of those European travelers breaks new ground
by ignoring the tradition of incorporating only the predictably
benign views of English gentlemen. It includes, instead, such
colorful perspectives toward the Mormons as those of an outraged
Italian Catholic priest, an intrigued German prince, a liberated
Frenchwoman, and a devout French convert. The European
visitors encountered not only faithful Mormons—including the
man they called the “Pope of Mormonism,” Brigham Young—but
other lively characters of the American West, from fur traders to
Indians to soldiers.