Corianton: A Nephite Story
1902
The most ambitious novel ever written about the Book of Mormon's world, Corianton follows a wayward priest's son through the spiritual wilderness of ancient America. Corianton is imprisoned for his defiance against the church, seduced by the anti-Christ Korihor's philosophy of moral freedom, and destroyed by a doomed affair with a woman named Isabel. Publicly condemned and privately shattered, he faces the ruins of his faith and reputation. But his brother Shiblon refuses to abandon him, and their father Alma offers not judgment but hard-won wisdom about mercy. This is a story about what it costs to doubt, what it means to return, and whether redemption requires surrendering the self or finding it. Roberts writes with nineteenth-century moral gravity but genuine psychological complexity - Corianton's struggle feels immediate even across a century. For readers drawn to religious historical fiction, or anyone interested in how faith traditions tell their own stories of wayward sons and desperate forgiveness.
