The Life of Mary Baker Eddy by Sibyl Wilbur

The Life of Mary Baker Eddy was a book written by Sibyl Wilbur originally published in August 1908. It was the first full-scale biography of Mary Baker Eddy and was based on a series of 13 articles Wilbur wrote for publication in Human Life magazine between December 1906 and December 1907. Wilbur wrote the series as a direct response to and refutation of attacks being made against Eddy in the press at that time–specifically, a series of hostile articles attributed to Georgine Milmine in McClure’s Magazine and a series of articles falsely claiming that Eddy was either dead or incapacitated published at the behest of Joseph Pulitzer in the New York World.

Wilbur was a respected journalist who had built a career in investigative reporting on women’s rights, labor issues, and culture for major metropolitan newspapers in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, and Boston. Wilbur had first interviewed Eddy at her Pleasant View home in Concord, New Hampshire, for an article that was published in the Boston Herald on May 14, 1905, and reprinted in the June 17, 1905, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel. After the interview, both Eddy and Wilbur reported feeling a strong affinity for and rapport with one another, and Wilbur became motivated to support and defend Eddy during what became one of the most intense periods of public scrutiny of her life, work, and self.

Wilbur spent several months researching and investigating the various claims being made about Eddy as well as conducting interviews with people throughout New England who had known her over the course of her life. Although the tone of The Life of Mary Baker Eddy verged at points on being overly idealizing, it was deeply researched and fact based and ultimately provided a helpful counterbalance to the biased attacks being made against Eddy in other media. Wilbur’s work to research and write the book also sparked her personal interest in Christian Science, and she began reading and studying Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and took Primary class instruction in Christian Science from Eddy’s student Alfred Farlow in 1907.

The Life of Mary Baker Eddy was originally published by the Concord Publishing Company in 1908 with the organization and financial backing of John V. Dittemore. Feeling that the time was not ripe for such a biography of herself, Eddy initially sought to block its release. However, after reviewing it, she publicly thanked Wilbur and the publisher and endorsed its circulation. The Christian Science Publishing Society subsequently obtained rights to the book and began publishing it in 1913.