Best Christian Books for Women: 12 Classics by Women of Faith
If you're looking for a classic Christian book for women, start with one written by a woman who had walked the road: Hannah Whitall Smith's The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered It. It's her own story, told at seventy, of how a Quaker girl full of fear came to rest in a God who is wholly good. If you'd rather start with the women of the Bible, read William Jay's Lectures on Female Scripture Characters.
The women in these books lived very different lives. One ran a book fund for poor pastors from her sickroom. One rescued children from temple slavery in India. One co-founded the Salvation Army and preached to thousands. Others were wives and mothers whose names would be forgotten if a son or a pastor hadn't written them down. What they share is plain: they took God at His word, they prayed, they served where they were put, and they suffered without letting go of Christ. Several of them also wrote the hymns and devotional books that Christians still use.
Here are twelve of the best books in TheWay Library by and about Christian women, all free to read.
Start here
1. The Unselfishness of God, by Hannah Whitall Smith
The author of The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life describes her Philadelphia Quaker childhood, then four turns in her spiritual life: awakening, assurance, the discovery that God is utterly unselfish, and the life of faith that followed. Chapter 23 is the heart of it.
Every doubting question was answered, and I was filled with an illimitable delight in the thought of having been created by such an unselfish God.
The Unselfishness of God, chapter 23
A few chapter openings lost their first letter in the scan; the rest reads cleanly. See our guide to Hannah Whitall Smith's books. Read The Unselfishness of God.
2. Lectures on Female Scripture Characters, by William Jay
Twenty-two lectures from the pastor of Bath on women of the Bible: the Shunammite, Mary Magdalene, Hannah, Anna the prophetess, the woman of Canaan, the poor widow, the woman of Samaria, Lydia, Dorcas, Martha and Mary, and Lot's wife. Each portrait is drawn from the text and turned into plain counsel. It works well for a women's Bible study, one character a week.
Our Lord always required faith in the suppliants who applied to him, and no cure was dispensed without it.
Lectures on Female Scripture Characters, lecture 2
Read Lectures on Female Scripture Characters.
Women who wrote and preached
3. Papers on Practical Religion, by Catherine Booth
Twelve addresses by the co-founder of the Salvation Army. "Female Ministry; or, Woman's Right to Preach the Gospel" is the longest and best known: she answers the usual objections and argues from Joel's prophecy and Pentecost that God pours His Spirit on daughters as well as sons. The scan of that paper is rough in places. The book also has her address to mothers on training children and papers on backsliding and prayer. See who Catherine Booth was. Read Papers on Practical Religion.
4. Life and Death, by Catherine Booth
If you want to hear Booth preach, read these fifteen addresses given in London. They are blunt and searching, aimed at comfortable churchgoers.
God Himself cannot give peace to a soul holding on to sin, nor does He ever propose to do so.
Life and Death, A True and a False Peace
5. Present to My Christian Friend on Entire Devotion to God, by Phoebe Palmer
The Methodist teacher whose Tuesday meetings in New York shaped the holiness movement wrote this little book to bring a friend into wholehearted devotion. She explains what holiness is, how to give yourself entirely to God and trust His promise, and how to keep walking in it. One chapter puts it simply enough for a child.
The faith that works by love, and purifies the heart, is the simplest thing that ever was conceived of.
Present to My Christian Friend, Power of Faith — Voice from the West
Read Present to My Christian Friend.
6. Letters of Frances Ridley Havergal
The hymn writer of "Take My Life and Let It Be" in her own letters, from 1852 to 1879, mostly to family and close friends. You watch her faith grow, her joy in prayer deepen, and her writing become a ministry.
The characteristic of this time was finding more and more that God heareth prayer, and specially intercessory prayer.
Letters of Frances Ridley Havergal, division 1
See our guide to Frances Ridley Havergal's books. Read her Letters.
Women who served
7. Lotus Buds, by Amy Carmichael
Amy Carmichael's book about the children in her care at Dohnavur in South India, many of them saved from being given to temple service. The first half is full of tenderness and humor; the second sets out the evidence of the temple traffic and asks readers to pray. The chapter "The Glory of the Usual" is a word for every woman whose work is ordinary and unseen.
Sometimes it has seemed to us that we were set to learn and to teach a new and difficult lesson, the sacredness of the commonplace.
Lotus Buds, The Glory of the Usual
See who Amy Carmichael was. Read Lotus Buds.
8. Ten Years of My Life in the Service of the Book Fund, by Susannah Spurgeon
C. H. Spurgeon's wife was an invalid for much of her married life. From home she started a fund that sent free theological books to poor ministers, and this is her record of its first ten years, with letters from grateful pastors and her own diary of trust in God.
If thou dost honestly trust Him, thou shouldest certainly not be afraid; for thy faith should deal a death-blow to all thy fears.
Ten Years of My Life in the Service of the Book Fund, The Book Fund Diary for 1885
Lives worth knowing
9. Life in Jesus: A Memoir of Mrs. Mary Winslow, by Octavius Winslow
The devotional writer's memoir of his mother, born in Bermuda in 1774, built from her letters and journals. She was known for her gift of counsel and comfort, and many of her letters on the spiritual life are printed here.
This is the sweet simplicity of faith that Christ loves.
Life in Jesus, Her Second Visit to England
10. A Memoir of Miss Mary Jane Graham, by Charles Bridges
A gifted young Englishwoman who lost her faith for a few frightening months at about seventeen, came back to Christ, and spent the rest of a short life in study, quiet service and, at the end, patient illness. The chapter on her doubt and return will help any thoughtful young woman wrestling with unbelief.
I write to you as a sinner, saved by God's grace, to a sinner, whom the grace of God, and that alone, can save.
A Memoir of Miss Mary Jane Graham, Different Views and Features in Miss Graham's Character
Read A Memoir of Miss Mary Jane Graham.
11. A Memoir of Lady Colquhoun, by James Hamilton
The life of a Scottish lady at Rossdhu on Loch Lomond who used her place to start Bible and Sabbath schools, visit cottagers and write for the poor, through many bereavements. The Scripture mottoes at the chapter heads are garbled in the scan, but the memoir itself is readable.
I have more need to go home and meditate and pray.
A Memoir of Lady Colquhoun, Rossdhu and Loch Lomond; A Mother's Legacy
Read A Memoir of Lady Colquhoun.
12. The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 13
Wesley printed the journals and life stories of ordinary Methodist women for his people to learn from: young Mary Gilbert's journal, Elizabeth Harper's, and short accounts of the lives and deaths of women such as Ann Rogers and Mary Langson.
O what a little serves to draw our minds from God!
The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 13, Mary Gilbert's Journal
More women of faith in the library
Some of the best-loved books by and about women are in our other guides. Fanny Crosby's two autobiographies and the Memorials of Frances Ridley Havergal are in the best Christian biographies. Amy Carmichael's Mimosa, Rosalind Goforth's How I Know God Answers Prayer and the lives of Robert and Mary Moffat are in the best missionary biographies. Susanna Wesley and Sarah Savage, daughter of Philip Henry, appear in Christian books on marriage and family. For widows, John Angell James's The Widow Directed to the Widow's God is in our guide to Christian books on grief.
You can find more by these writers on their pages: Hannah Whitall Smith, Catherine Booth, Amy Carmichael, Frances Ridley Havergal and Phoebe Palmer.