Table of Contents

Mary Baker Glover Paterson; 1821-1862 * Early Influences, Later Memories * Father and Brother * The Baker Women of Sanbornton Bridge * First Marriage * Single Mother * Marriage to Dr. Paterson Dr. Mary B. Glover Eddy; 1863-1882 * A Devlish Smart Woman * Fired with the Prescience of a Great Mission * The Fall of Lynn * Homeless * Rebellious Students * Science and Health 1875 * Spofford and Eddy * The Conspiracy to Murder Daniel Spofford * The Move to Boston and the Death of Gilbert Eddy The New Mrs. Eddy; 1883-1905 * The Massachusetts Metaphysical College * Getting Out the Word * More Dissidents and New Rules * Building the Mother Church * A New Edition of Science and Health and a New Son * Pleasant View * The Last Class * Mrs. Woodbury and Hew Lawyer * Mark Twain Fails to Come Calling Maker Baker Eddy Fights on; 1906-1910 * The Next Friends Suit * Mrs. Eddy Wins in Court * Chestnut Hill * Epilogue

Reviews

Gill (Agatha Christie: The Woman and Her Mysteries, LJ 1/92) writes about the amazingly resilient founder of the Christian Science Church, a woman who weathered indigence, a life-threatening fall, three marriages, various defections of students, and legal challenges. Gill, who was given access to church archives, provides an unbiased portrait of an extraordinary woman who exercised spiritual leadership at a time when women's concerns were supposed to be in the home, not the public arena. Unlike earlier biographers, Gill does not make Eddy into a saint or a devil‘she sees Eddy's successes as an expression of her talents, making this book of interest to feminists and historians as well as those interested in Christian Science. Recommended for all libraries.‘Carolyn M. Craft, Longwood Coll., Farmville, VA