<p><I>The Higher Court</I> (1911) is a novel of religion and romance by Mary Stewart Daggett, a writer well-known in her community of Pasadena, California whose work has yet to find the audience it deserves.</p>
<p>Father Barry, a young Catholic priest in the Midwest, is beginning to question his vows. A tense meeting with the local bishop, combined with a feeling of mental unease, have shaken Barry's faith to the core. Meanwhile, in the midst of a heavy blizzard, a letter arrives from Isabel Doan, a friend of Barry's from before he took his orders-she is stopping by to see him on her way to Southern California, where she is moving with her young son Reginald. When they arrive, Barry is shaken by a series of events-Reginald has come down with a terrible illness; news arrives of the death of his estranged mother; and his love for Isabel threatens to tear down the final vestige of his already fleeting faith. Faced with a choice, Father Barry abandons the cloth and travels to Europe, but he will soon find something stronger than religion to guide his heart back home.</p>
<p>Mary Stewart Daggett's <I>The Higher Court</I> interrogates tradition in order to get to the truth, while simultaneously illuminating the inexorable changes faced by the nation and world in the early-twentieth century.</p>
<p>With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Mary Stewart Daggett's <I>The Higher Court</I> is a newly unearthed classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.</p>