American priestess : the extraordinary story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem / Jane Fletcher Geniesse.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 349-364) and index.

Branded heretics by Jerusalem's established Christian missionaries when they arrived in 1881, the Spaffords nevertheless won over Muslims and Jews with their philanthropy. When her husband Horatio died, Anna assumed leadership, shocking even her adherents by abolishing marriage and establishing an uneasy dictatorship based on emotional blackmail and religious extremism.

A beginning -- Anna -- Spafford -- Thrilling ideas -- The calamity of the age -- Collision at sea -- "You must give yourself to my work" -- Return to Chicago -- The overcomers -- "Amelikans" in Yerushalayim -- The Gadites -- Bad news and good works -- Friends and a foe -- Overcoming temptation and the dangers of attachment -- Struggling on -- The Whiting affair -- The trial -- The Chicago Swedes -- The Swedes from Nås -- A cemetery war begins -- The sultan, the emperor, the Zionists, and buried bodies -- The novelist -- The new dispensation -- Triumph -- War -- Suffering -- Surrender -- The lion and the lamb -- Death -- Epitaph.