The Academic World and A Story Untold.

How has this work, A Story Untold, been used in the academic world? Here are examples of academic works that made use of this book:

Mitch Horowitz, One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life. New York: Crown Publishing, [2014].

He added this in the Acknowledgements, p. [323], which refers to Keith’s help in educating Horowitz two years before Keith brought out his own work:

“Personal thanks go to Keith McNeil, an indefatigable researcher and historian who provided me with several key historical documents. Keith shared his insights with sensitivity and balance.”

Catherine Albanese (editor), The Spiritual Journals of Warren Felt Evans from Methodism to Mind Cure. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press [2016].

This is not only an important work on Warren F. Evans but it also is important on the Quimby-Eddy debate. Albanese supported my conclusion that Evans did not consider himself a pupil of Quimby, nor does the documentary data suggest that he was significantly influenced by him. This book makes nice comments about A Story Untold.

Shirley Thomas Paulson, (Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Birmingham, June, 2017), “Healing Theologies in Christian Science and Secret Revelation of John: A Critical Conversation in Practical Theology.”

Paulson referenced A Story Untold in her dissertation.

Hamilton, Michael W. “The Bible and Christian Scientists.” Pages 661–80 in The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in America, ed. Paul C. Gutjahr. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Hamilton referenced A Story Untold in his article.

Heather Vogel Frederick, “A Woman of Sound Education”: Mary Baker Eddy’s School Years. Chestnut Hill, MA: Longyear Museum Press, 2020.

This is a very well researched and documented look at Mrs. Eddy’s early education years. It cites A Story Untold.

Shirley Paulson, Helen Mathis, and Linda Bargmann, An Annotated Bibliography of Academic and Other Literature on Christian Science. Chesterfield, MO: Scholarly Works on Christian Science, [2021].

This important book on the academic side of literature on Christian Science includes a listing of A Story Untold on page 69.

George Wadleigh, The Ram in a Thicket: Rebirth and Reform in the Practice of Christian Science. Lima, OH: Fairway Press, 2021.

The book quotes from A Story Untold many times.

Amy B. Voorhees, A New Christian Identity [:] Christian Science Origins and Experience in American Culture. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, [2021].

A Story Untold is mentioned three times in the book.

Catherine L. Albanese, The Delight Makers: Anglo-American Metaphysical Religion and the Pursuit of Happiness, by Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2023.

This is a very helpful book on metaphysical religions and the like, with looks at Bushnell, Andrew Jackson Davis, P. P. Quimby, Warren F. Evans, Emma Hopkins, etc. Albanese noted on Warren Evans, p. 339:

“The traditional account carried forward by New Though authors that Phineas P. Quimby was Evans’s mentor and doctor has been thoroughly discredited with prodigious evidence by independent scholar Keith McNeil in A Story Untold: A History of the Quimby-Eddy Debate (Carmel, IN: Hawthorne, 2020), vol. 3, esp. 1071-73, 1095-97, 1160-73.”

She makes a few other references to my book as well.

A Story Untold is cited in many Wikipedia subject reports.

Other works by Keith McNeil

Keith McNeil had his 2026 article, “Why Christian Science is not Quimbyism,” published in the Mary Baker Eddy Library website: https://www.marybakereddylibrary.org.

He also wrote a biographical sketch of Quimby for the German online encyclopedia, BBKL [Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon] (https://www.bbkl.de).

A Story Untold: A History of the Quimby-Eddy Debate

This book was originally released as an e-book in 2016. It was revised in 2017. In 2020 it was again revised and released both as a hard-bound three-volume issue as well as an ebook PDF version, which is searchable. This book was updated and revised in this 2026 issue, which is available only as an e-book PDF. While this new issue does not change any major findings, it has important and helpful new information.

The debate over whether Mary Baker Eddy derived her later Christian Science from what she learned during her time as a patient of Phineas P. Quimby, which is referred to here as the Quimby-Eddy debate, has effectively been in the public eye since 1883.

This is the first academic study of that debate, but this work goes well beyond just a look at the debate. It includes the first in-depth biographical treatment of Quimby, long considered by many to be the father of the New Thought movement. It also includes a detailed examination of many of the controversial biographical questions that have been raised by critics of Eddy and Christian Science and historians about her life.

This website originally indicated the plan for a volume II, from 1866 to present. That is not the plan now, but other books are being produced on specialized historical points that will be posted here. One planned book is one on Eddy’s fall on the ice in Lynn in 1866 and a complete history of the year 1866. Another one is a bibliography of Eddy’s writings. (A revised version was published in January 2026, but some updates were needed so an updated version was published on March 31, 2026.)

In addition to its focus on Quimby and Eddy, the book also in Chapter Six covers the early life of Warren Felt Evans, with the later portion of his life included in Chapter Seven.

All too often the mid-nineteenth century history of mental healing in America has focused solely on Quimby, Eddy, and Evans, but that is too myopic a view. Chapter Three looks extensively at the life of internationally-known healer of that day, J. R. Newton, along with some other lesser known healers. This helps provide a broader context to that discussion.

The book helps to address these and many other questions:

Did Eddy derive Christian Science from what she got from Quimby?
Did Eddy’s religious nature influence Quimby?
What is the true history of the “Quimby Manuscripts” as preserved by his family?
What ever happened to Quimby’s early subject, Lucius E. Burkmar?
How did Warren F. Evans view his early contact with Quimby?
Did the Dresser family fairly and accurately present Quimby’s theories in later years?
How reliable is Horatio Dresser’s book, The Quimby Manuscripts (1921)?
How reliable were the early charges made against Eddy in the biographical treatments of her life in the New York World and McClure’s magazine in the years 1906-1908?
How accurate was Eddy in her later description of her brief stay in the South in 1844?
Were the Quimby manuscripts redated by later followers to deny an alleged influence on Quimby by Eddy during their years together from 1862 to 1865?
Was Eddy a plagiarist (of Quimby’s writings or other writings) as has been alleged?
How reliable are later transcriptions of Quimby’s writings that have been made and published by his devout followers?