Sarah Elizabeth Forbush Downs (b. Forbush) (1843-1926) was born in Wrentham, Massachusetts, and died in Boston, Massachusetts. She attended the Ladies Collegiate Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1862 she married George S. Chamberlin of Ashland, Massachusetts. He died in 1864, and in 1868 she married George Sheldon Downs, also of Ashland. He was the owner of a shoe manufacturing business and later became superintendent of a shoe factory at the Charlestown, Massachusetts, state prison. Downs began writing stories for newspaper publication in 1869. She soon developed into a very popular and prolific author, writing approximately 60 works over the course of her career, including dozens of serialized romances published in Smith's Magazine and New York Weekly as well as many novels. Downs was also a member of the New England Women's Press Association. She wrote under her own name and under the pseudonyms Mrs. Georgie Sheldon and Mrs. George Sheldon Downs. Some of her novels are still in print and continue to be popular in contemporary times. She moved to Concord, Massachusetts, by 1880, then to Newton, Massachusetts, by 1892, and finally to Boston by 1900. Downs studied Christian Science with Flavia Stickney Knapp, a student of Mary Baker Eddy's. She contributed to the Mother Church Building Fund in 1892 and became a member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston on October 3, 1896. In 1886 Downs expressed interest in featuring Eddy as a heroine in one of her novels, which Eddy instructed her not to do. However, Downs did go on to feature fictionalized characters who were firm adherents of Christian Science in her novels, most notably The Heatherford Fortune, published in 1899, and Katherine's Sheaves, published in 1904.

See more letters.