Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Mary (Morse) Baker Eddy, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 4810 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
For victory over a single sin we give thanks, and magnify the Lord of Hosts. Then what shall we say of the mighty conquest over all sin? A louder song, sweeter than has ever before reached high Heaven, now rises clearer and nearer to the great heart of Christ; for the accuser is not there, and Love sends forth her primal and everlasting strain. Self-abnegation--by which we lay down all for Christ, Truth, in our warfare against error--is a rule in Christian Science. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Amazon.com
The feminist perspective of historian Gillian Gill (author of a previous biography of Agatha Christie) adds three-dimensionality to the life story of the controversial, charismatic founder of Christian Science. Neither unblemished saint nor unscrupulous manipulator, Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) emerges in this substantive reassessment as a powerful woman so constrained by conventional notions of femininity that she suffered decades of frustration and ill health before liberating herself with radical new ideas. Her emphasis on spiritual healing and women's empowerment made enemies virtually from the first publication of Science and Health in 1875; the schisms and lawsuits that plagued her church gave Eddy's opponents ammunition. In her thorough coverage of such touchy matters, Gill doesn't deny her subject's imperiousness and tendency to paranoia, but her sympathetic analysis stresses Eddy's gifts as a religious leader, administrator, and propagandist. The author gained access to the closely guarded Christian Science archives without ceding editorial control, and her scrupulous effort to freshly judge every issue justifies this trust. Gill's dry wit and first-person presence in the text's opinions ensure that her lengthy, exhaustively documented narrative doesn't feel unduly daunting or academic. --Wendy Smith Book Description
Part One Of Two Parts

Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) rose, in mid-life, from poverty, illness, and obscurity to found the Christian Science Church, a national newspaper and to become one of the most influential women in America.The author places Mrs. Eddy in the context of 19th century American womanhood, portraying her as neither a saint nor a demon but a woman of extraordinary talents who overcame the repressive forces of society, jealousy, intrigue, and scandal.She shows us Mary Baker Eddy as a radical Christian thinker, pioneer in the recognition of mind/body connections, survivor of scandal, and target of both admiration and scorn from many eminent contemporaries.With access to closely guarded church archives, Gill presents a superb and balanced biography of one of America's most enigmatic religious leaders.

"Superb and balanced...surpassing other biographies...a genuine achievement." (Kirkus Reviews) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Exhaustive and, at times, exhausting
I bought this book at the Christian Science reading room in Boston next to the Mother Church at the recommendation of one of the staff members.She said the book was a good fit for someone who wasn't a Christian Scientist, but wanted to learn more about Mrs. Eddy. I found Gillian Gill's carefully documented biography to be thorough in most respects.Some of the financial issues were glossed over -- How did Ms. Eddy really become so wealthy?While she certainly isn't fawning, Ms. Gill seems too gentle in her treatment of Mrs. Eddy's paranoia about "malicious animal magnetism."The second half of the book is markedly more readable than the first.

Charisma
Biographers of Eddy have assumed she was an ordinary woman in possession of an astonishing achievement and success.This strikes Gill as an absurdity.Surely her talent must account for her achievement. Mary Baker Eddy's freedom from domestic care was won at enormous cost when she was separated from her six year old son.She lived with her second husband, Daniel Patterson, in North Groton, New Hampshire between 1855 and 1860.After 1862 she began a transition.By 1875 she was active and independent.She first consulted Quimby, a healer, in 1862.Both Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy were autodicts.Mary Baker Eddy suffered from life-long loneliness.During the Civil War Daniel Patterson had the look of a fool and a failure because he was captured by the rebel forces while he was, remarkably, sight-seeing.The situation encouraged Mary to take an independent stand.For such an undertaking good health was requisite.Under the ministrations of P.P. Quimby she was healed.She became a Quimby disciple and publicist.She made several visits to Portland, Maine between 1863 and 1865.Quimby published nothing in his lifetime.He was barely literate.The Quimby papers were, in all probability, transcriptions of Quimby dictations.Quimby died in 1866.Eddy's healing in 1866 after a fall on the ice, as her marriage was collapsing, was produced through Bible reading.It was a turning point.

Between 1866 and 1870 Mrs. Eddy moved nine times.She was penniless. Hiram Crafts was MBE's first student.While living with Mrs. Webster she met Richard Kennedy and Sarah Bagley.In 1870 MBE and Richard Kennedy moved to Lynn.Kennedy was a healer and MBE a teacher.The early students, except for Putney Bancroft, were a source of endless trouble to Eddy.By 1872 Kennedy had declared his independence.Nearly all of the Eddy-Kennedy correspondance has disappeared. SCIENCE AND HEALTH appeared in print in 1875.Many revisions took place in the foundational text, finally issued for posterity in 1907.MBE underwent social ostracism and cultural and intellectual isolation.She was writing alone in a cultural vacuum.Gill characterizes the work as the loneliest book she has encountered.

The author of the biography functions as a sort of counsel to the defense as she evaluates MBE's essential intergrity and authenticity.She separates the strands of the rival schools of biographers, Milmine-Dakin-Dittemore versus Peel-Wilbur. Asa Gilbert Eddy and Mary Baker Glover, (after separating from Patterson she resumed using the Glover surname), were married January 1, 1877.Gilbert proved to be very useful.He died June 3, 1882.In August 1882 Calvin Frye was offered employment by Mrs. Eddy at her Massachusetts Metaphysical College.His employment with her extended to the end of her life in 1910.Calvin Frye had grown up in the shadow of his mother's insanity.

Mrs. Eddy's religion succeeded as she created a persona appealing to both the rich financier and the aspiring artisan.John Wilson, University Press, became the printer of SCIENCE AND HEALTH to the great betterment of the book in its subsequent editions.Between 1885 and 1891 some editorial services were provided by James Henry Wiggin, a Unitarian minister.Gill argues that SCIENCE AND HEALTH is a flawed but fascinating and radical work.Mary Baker Eddy was unschooled but brilliant.By the end of the 1880's Christian Science was a religious force.It was challenged by the New Thought Movement.

In 1889 Mrs. Eddy moved from Boston to New Hampshire and thereafter appeared in public infrequently.She closed the Metaphysical College and other Christian Science institutions underwent reorganization.In 1892 the Mother Church was established.The building of the church on Norway Street was completed in eight months.Joseph Armstrong wrote interestinglyof the building of the church and the extension.The directors supplied on-site supervision of the work. Part of Mrs. Eddy wanted to be entertained and adored.There was, for example, her adopted son Ebenezer Foster.Unfortunately Foster exploited his influence.This biographer identifies one of the problems in Mrs. Eddy's dealings with others is that she hated noise.Pleasant View was a garden and a farm.In her first decade at Concord she enjoyed relative anonymity.In the nineteenth century New Hampshire was a tourist mecca.

A rigid household routine enabled Mrs. Eddy to cope with uneven progress in Christian Science affairs.In her pursuit of domestic perfection Mrs. Eddy may have been a little mad.Household workers learned to fear her anger.Mrs. Eddy taught her last Christian Science class in 1898.Students received special invitations to join the gathering in Concord. In 1906 the New York WORLD reported that Mrs. Eddy was more dead than alive.Her reclusiveness puzzled friends and family.The citizens of Concord were prepared to combat the press attacks.After the Next of Friendslaw suit Mrs. Eddy moved to Chestnut Hill, (to a great barn of a place, she said).Within three weeks the rooms were reduced to the dimensions of those at Pleasant View and the dwelling became more tailored to Mrs. Eddy's needs.In the end Mrs. Eddy and her followers dealt with Josephine Woodbury and Augusta Stetson, errant leaders of the movement.

Gillian Gill finds that Eddy was not an hysteric, a drug-addict, or deficient in maternal feelings.Acts to change the structure of the religion undertaken subsequent to 1889 are called amusingly the great disestablishment by Gill.Notes, source book descriptions, and an index follow the epilogue in this accomplished and judicious retelling of the life of Mary Baker Eddy.

One of the best biographies I've read about Mary Baker Eddy
I have read a number of biographies about Mary Baker Eddy and this is probably one of the best. Don't skip the footnotes! They are long but well worth reading. I kept one bookmark in the book and another in the footnotes. A few parts that I really enjoyed was learning more about Mary Baker Eddy's life before her discovery of Christian Science. There seems to be very little reliable information on this time period and Gillian Gill fills this void. I also enjoyed reading about the Next Friends case. Gillian Gill seems to have gone further than any previous biographer and actually read what seems to be practically everything on this subject - from newspaper clippings in Lynn, court transcripts, letters between the individuals filing the lawsuit, and more. It is the clearest explanation of the lawsuit I have ever read. And on top of this, I have a little clearer idea of what life must have been like for women in the 1800s - whether you writing a book about the Bible and healing or not.

A Model for Mid to Late Life Accomplishment
For far too long, Mary Baker Eddy has been worshiped by Christian Scientists and either castigated or ignored by nearly everyone else.Thanks to this long-needed biography, we now know that Eddy provides an inspiring model for mid to late life accomplishment.As biographer Gill puts it, she was "conventional in her 20s, weak in her 30s, struggling in her 40s, a social outcast in her 50s, indefatigably working in her 60s, famous in her 70s, formidable in her 80s."Over her long life, Eddy overcame ill health, poverty, widowhood, divorce, accusations of plagiarism, lawsuits, mockery and deception, in addition to the expected obstacles of being born poor, uneducated and female in the 19th century.Yet this woman became the most influential and controversial woman in America at the turn of the century.Her writings so challenged contemporary mores that her detractors expended massive amountsof energy producing -- or manufacturing -- damning facts and damaging documents.Over the years, men from Mark Twain to Noel Coward stooped to cheap shots, calling her, variously, shallow, stupid, egotistic, illiterate, illogical, uncultured, poorly read, incapable of love, painted, bedizened, affected, hysteric , paranoiac, mad, ambitious, mercenary, tyrannical, a man eater, a husband killer, a drug addict, a mesmerist, a plagiarist, and even, long after her death, "Hitler with no mustache."Unhappily, most feminists have been so blinded by Eddy's religion that they have failed to properly acknowledge much less honor her considerable courage and accomplishments. Thank you Gillian Gill for setting this straight.

Waste of time
Gill's book is 2 inches thick. Nothing is new and Eddy as all CS approved literature always comes out on top. She is the infallible prophet that without Rev. Wiggin's revisions of Science and Health, making sense of non-sense, she would have never suceeded in having individuals follow what she herself never did. Morphine was her friend when pain was present.

For a more objective view see: Fraser's "God's Perfect Child" or Bliss "Destiny of the Mother Church" which really shows Eddy=Christ.

Kessinger Publishers publish a lot of out of print Eddy Books/Christian Science books and is worth a look at. ... Read more

Book Description
Making some of Mary Baker Eddy's autobiographical writings available for the first time, the Title offers a candid look at a remarkable life. Here, Eddy tells her own story - tells it as no one else can. With a probing and insightful introduction by Jana K. Riess, religion book review editor for "Publisher's Weekly," this volume promises to take a prominent place in the growing genre of women's spiritual memoir. ... Read more

Book Description
Rolling Away the Stone is a richly detailed account of the last two decades of the life of Mary Baker Eddy, a major religious thinker whose character and achievement are just beginning to be understood. This is the first book-length discussion of Eddy to make full use of the resources of the Mary Baker Eddy Collection in Boston. It focuses on her long-range legacy as a Christian thinker, specifically her challenge to the materialism that continues to threaten religious belief and practice in our time.

Hoping to retire in 1889 after seven turbulent years founding the Christian Science movement, Eddy believed the demands upon her would ease. Instead, during the 1890s and 1900s, she entered into the most active and fruitful period of her long life, becoming a nationally and even internationally known figure. The radical character of Eddy's teaching, together with her position as a woman religious leader in a male-dominated society, aroused storm clouds of controversy that have continued to swirl around her memory today. The book opens with an account of the critical point in this controversy when her very sanity was challenged in a litigation that became one of the first media events of the 20th century.

Stephen Gottschalk also traces the fascinating relation between Eddy's encounter with the problem of evil in the first half of her life and how Mark Twain, her best-known adversary, faced the same issue during his later years. Gottschalk then explores how Eddy's challenge to materialism shaped her response to a series of crises that arose as she brought her life's work to completion. This is a sensitive and serious biography of an important figure in American religious history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

scholarly research
Steve Gottschalk has done another thorough job of research into the life and times of Mary Baker Eddy. His careful analysis is greatly appreciated.

brilliantly written, inspiring to read
Stephen Gottchalk's writing is articulate and illuminating.A fascinating book which I could hardly put down.Very inspiring and enlighening at times.He thoroughly understood his subject and brings forth his vast and detailed understanding to the reader in a way that is easy to comprehend.It clears up fallacies and inaccuracies .It is an important book for sincere readers.

Classic Gottschalk
For those who remember Stephen's articles for the Christian Science periodicals, this is classic Gottschalk.In other words, it is highly detailed, well researched, well thought out, and tends to be much more theologically based than the writings that come out of the Publishing Society.He also has a marked tendency to drift from his focus on occasion, and to get side-tracked onto peripheral lines of thought. In general, a candid and thorough look at the later years of a remarkable life.More analytical and less folksy, this book belongs alongside the biography by Gillian Gill - as both a supplement to it, and as an effective insider's look from someone who truly understands Christian Science theology perhaps even better than many at The Mother Church.

inspirational and informational
Very few books make me want to read to the end. This one did. Someone could actually use this to deepenand widen their faith of God as taught
through Christian Science. I could return to book and reread it. As Mrs. Eddy said to understand her was to understand Christian Science.So I
highly recommend this work. This is not light reading it more like a textbook. But I like that if its well done. Deep thinkers well enjoy this
read.

Pleased in KY
Thank you for your service.I received my order within a couple of days and I appreciated that it was packed with care and was in perfect condition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Wow1What a healer
I had not heard of many of these healings. This book really points out that we need to do be more active healers.

Uplifting and Inspiring
This book reinforces the statement "all things are possible". Mary Baker Eddy saw into the spiritual realm and remarkable healings followed. She was way ahead of her time with her remarkable insight and healing but the world is slowly catching up. The general population now accepts many of her ideas that were once scoffed at. The mind-body connection and the power of prayer in healing have gone mainstream and prayer groups are now achieving what seemed medically impossible. This book of Mary Baker Eddy's healings is very inspiring and gives hope and encouragement to all. She left a wonderful gift for the world that can only be fully appreciated when we catch a glimpse of her message.

Christian Science grew because Mary Baker Eddy healed
Facinating insight into the healing work of Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science.Well researched and annotated.Clear and convincing evidence that Mary Baker Eddy PRACTICEDwhat she CLAIMED that she had found - the Science of Christianity and itsHealing Power, The divine Power understood.

This book may not convincethe skeptics but I shared it with someone who had never heard of Mrs. Eddyand she devoured the book as fast as she could. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Love's Chosen Love: A Record of Events Leading Up to Two Letters
A record of events leading up to two letters from Mary Baker Eddy toAugusta E. Stetson following Mrs. Stetson's excommunication from The MotherChurch in November 1909 by the Christian Science Board of Directors. Reveals the special relationship between Mary Baker Eddy, "Love's chosenlove," and Augusta E. Stetson, Mrs. Eddy's "best beloved" student. Original publication of Emma Publishing Society.Booklet; 22 pages; EmmaPublishing Society, 1995. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Letters of Mary Baker Eddy to Augusta E. Stetson
The letters of Mary Baker Eddy to Augusta E. Stetson, C.S.D., writtenbetween 1889 and 1909, are reproduced from the Manuscript Collection in TheHuntington Library, San Marino, California.This priceless collection ofletters, written over a period of twenty years, breathes the spirit ofgenuine Christian Science, and reveals Mary Baker Eddy's love for her "bestbeloved" student, Augusta E. Stetson.Original publication of EmmaPublishing Society.Burgundy cloth; color portrait; 113 pages; EmmaPublishing Society, 1990. ... Read more

Book Description
PERSISTENT PILGRIM is the most in-depth, serious biography ofMary Baker Eddy since the Peel trilogy a generation ago and the firstone-volume story of the life of the founder of Christian Science to bewritten by a Christian Scientist in almost 50 years. In an easilyaccessible book of approximately 320 pages, Richard Nenneman, who a fewyears ago retired as Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Science Monitor,traces the outlines of her life and the religion she described as adiscovery in terms understandable to any general reader.A fascinatingaspect of this biography is that Nenneman researched and read everysingle available piece of correspondence written by Mary Baker Eddythat is in The Mother Church archives; yet he does not use extracts orquoted materials heavily. The book examines the woman behind the publicimage, including her upbringing, family and personal tragedies,religious development, lawsuits, etc. These excerpts from Mrs. Eddy'sletters vividly portray her challenges and her dealings with herstudents and later with her young church. The author does not believethat a religious biography can be written without a point of view, buthe does not draw back from presenting Mrs. Eddy as a woman who could bevolatile. In fact, while the book necessarily traces the development ofChristian Science, it is even more a story of Mrs. Eddy's personaldevelopment, growth, and ability to lead others through her spiritualmaturity. Her story culminates in the almost continual challenges shefaced and overcame during the last decade of her life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Wonderful perspective
This book provided me with a wonderful perspective on Mary Baker Eddy'shealing gift and how she established it, against considerable odds, as asystem, supported by a church and a publishing house, which remainsavailable for personal study through her book, Science & Health withKey to the Scriptures.

A pedestrian volume
Having read a good number of biographies on Mary Baker Eddy, I found this particular volume to be well-intended but ineffective.About 95% of Nennemann's book has already been covered, repeatedly in some cases and inmore detail, by other books; but the little new light he throws on thesubject is interesting (particularly Eddy's discomfort with ChristianScience promoting itself in proximity to Eastern religions andSpiritualism).The author seems to have genuine respect and affection forhis subject, while presenting her in a non-idealized way --something to beappreciated; but the writing lacked style and content.Intending no greatdisrespect, whereas another reviewer mentioned the book kept him awake, Ihad exactly the reaction.

Perceptive and affectionate
This fairly short biography of Mary Baker Eddy gives a fuller and deeper appreciation of her character than even Robert Peel's three volume work.Nenneman relates the events of her life in a way that throws real light onthe way Christian Science itself informed her actions and graduallydeveloped her perceptions.The reader may still want to turn to Peel'swork for detailed analysis but this well-documented book is the very bestplace to start a study of this religious figure.It reminds one of EdmundMorris' Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.Real feeling for the subject pervadesevery page. ... Read more