Fanny J. Crosby (1820-1915) was a poet, teacher and dedicated mission worker, but she was best known as a prolific hymn writer, composing an estimated 5,000 to 9,000 hymns under as many as 200 pseudonyms. Mistreatment of an illness left her blind at six weeks, and her father died before she was a year old. She was raised by her mother and grandmother in a Christian home where she memorized entire books of the Bible as part of her early education. Later she entered the New York Institution for the Blind. Crosby did not let her different ability prevent her ardent participation in the camp meetings and revivals of the Wesleyan Holiness movement, and she was a regular leader and participant at the Ocean Grove summer meetings for many years. Her hymns appear in more denominations’ hymnals than almost any other writer (except Charles Wesley), and seven of them remain in the current United Methodist Hymnal, including “Blessed Assurance,” “Pass me Not, O Gentle Savior,” and “Rescue the Perishing."
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Read the story behind “Blessed Assurance," see the lyrics and hear the music
A selection of books about Fanny J. Crosby
More about the Ocean Grove camp meetings