Synopses & Reviews
The first book offering material from previously unpublished writings, reveals stirring insights into the indomitable 19th century spiritual leader and best-selling author, Mary Baker Eddy. Publicly derided and a target of that historic media frenzy, yellow journalism, it was believed that Eddy's sole response to her powerful detractors was focused in the history-making action of founding
The Chrisitan Science Monitor. Unknown to many, however, is Eddy's journal of defense and triumph that is now published as a selection in this book.
This title is an autobiography unlike any other. This collection of previously private and public writings by Eddy reveals a vulnerability behind the legendary tenacity of this remarkable leader and examines the how and why behind Eddy's choice to confront the many adversities in her life by spiritual means. The book is a persuasive argument by a visionary reformer, who broke through the boundaries of powerful constraints of her times to present bold new models of spirituality, womanhood, and medicine.
This volume promises to take a prominent place in the growing genre of women's spiritual memior.
Review
"The questions Mary Baker Eddy dealt with the questions of the nature of matter and of the nature of the person and of the mind/body relationship and spiritual healing are all very, very central issues right now. And they are going to become more and more part of God-talk over the next 25 years." Phyllis Tickle, author of The Shaping of a Life, The Divine Hours, Gold-Talk in America, and Re-Discovering the Sacred: Spirituality in America
Review
"Mary Baker Eddy's narrative includes elements of a classic spiritual autobiography, a first-hand account of God's work in and through the life of one person. In such accounts, the journey toward self-knowledge and the journey toward knowledge of God are one." Ann Braude, Ph.D., Director of the Women's Studies in Religion Program and Senior Lecturer on American Religious History at Harvard Divinity School
Review
"In the late 1800's, there were very few women in medical schools, in seminaries, or in universities. Mrs. Eddy and a handful of other women upset centuries of tradition when they began to speak and write about religious and medical issues...and to talk openly about the equality of men and women." David Hufford, Ph.D., Professor of Medical Humanities, Behavioral Science and Family Medicine at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine
Synopsis
Published in October 2002, this anthology is the collection of two autobiographical works; Retrospection and Introspection, and the first publication, in its entirety, of Footprints Fadeless, Mary Baker Eddy's unfinished and unedited manuscript, which was written between 1901 and 1902 largely as a response to her critics.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-165) and index.
About the Author
Introduction author, Jana K. Riess has a Ph.D. in American religious history from Columbia University. She also holds degrees from Wellesley College and Princeton Theological Seminary, and is author of The Spiritual Traveler: Boston and New England. She is currently the Religion Book Review Editor for Publishers Weekly.