Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial

by Robert Peel

Book Overview

Biography of a controversial religious leader who founded the Christian Science religion. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0030867002
• ISBN13: 9780030867002
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: Holt McDougal
• Length: 391 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic middle volume of set

This book is the second of a three-volume set chronicling the life of Mary Baker Eddy, a woman who discovered Christian Science and founded the Christian Science Church. Her textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, has sold millions of copies since being published in 1875. As mentioned in my review of the first volume, the Peel Trilogy is regarded as one of the most thorough MBE biographies out there. Peel had tremendous access to the church archives. This book has even more endnotes than the first (almost 70 pages). The Years of Trial picks up Mary Baker Eddy's life in 1876 and continues until 1891. This period chronicles the growth and development of Christian Science, several significant revisions of Science and Health, and other fascinating twists and turns. The biographies by Robert Peel and Gillian Gill are both highly respected and I recommend them both. In Peel's second volume, I find he continues in a similar vein as the first - while he certainly does not offer an unblemished history of Mrs. Eddy, he does seem to be writing more for the Christian Scientist than Gillian Gill (who is not a Christian Scientist). Though non-Christian Scientists who want to know about Mrs. Eddy may gravitate at first towards Gill's book, I think Peel's biography is of equal significance. Both are extremely well-researched, both discount many of the outrageous claims out there about Mrs. Eddy, and both are interesting accounts.