Her most famous book, Tim, the Scissors Grinder, sold half a million copies, and was translated into several languages.

[5] Her father was the founder of Andover Theological Seminary and a friend of the polymath poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.[3] She was called "Hatty" during her younger years.

[6][page needed] When she was a child, her family had a house guest, William Schauffler, a German Jew who was sent to her father's care for his theological education.

This incident inspired her to form a sewing society with her Sunday School classmate, Elizabeth Stuart, and earn money to buy a cloak for Schauffler.

She enclosed her short story to Deacon Nathaniel Willis with a note authorizing him to print it in his newspaper, The Youth’s Companion if he wished.

[8] On June 17, 1829, when Baker was nearly fourteen, she, together with four sisters and a cousin, Almira Woods, set off for Abbot Female Seminary, the new academy founded by Mrs. Nehemiah Abbott,[6][page needed] She attended it during its first year of existence,[9] though age fifteen.

[11] She published during her residence in Medford, Massachusetts three small volumes, The String of Pearls, Louise Merton, and Frank Herbert.

Of the second of these, the proof-reader in the office where it was printed, said: "I become so interested in the story that I forget to make the proper correction of typographical errors.” Her duties as a clergyman's wife and mother of five sons prevented her from realizing ambition further except for occasional articles.

In plot and literary finish, in power and pathos, this is considered one of her happiest efforts, and called forth flattering notices and reviews from Washington Irving and other distinguished critics.

The wave of evangelical feeling that passed over New England consequent on the preaching of Dr. Finney, the evangelist, powerfully affected Baker, and turned her literary activities in religious channels.

In the heyday of her success, the coming out of one of her books was looked upon as an event by her readers, and it was thought nothing remarkable to strike off an edition of 10,000 copies on the first appearance of a story whose title page bore the name of Madeline Leslie.

Possessing the Macaulayan faculty of plucking the very heart out of a book in a space of time that for others would hardly more than suffice for turning its pages, she found in reading an unfailing delight.

She was reading Victor Hugo's novels this week at the rate of a book a day, and on the evening previous to her death held an animated conversation with her son, Dr. Charles E. Baker, about one of the characters in Les Misérables.

[6][page needed] On October 1, 1835, she married Abijah Richardson Baker (died 1876), who for 15 years was pastor of the Congregational Church at Medford, Massachusetts.

[11] She was very affected by her husband's death on April 30, 1876, that she wrote about his sickness, which was to quote in her language "bound in green in her library in Brooklyn".

[3] According to her letters, on the evening of Tuesday, 11 April, two weeks before her death, she complained of feeling “poorly” and finding it difficult to sleep.

[8] Baker's books were written in good English, and were remarkably free from catch phrases and barbarisms, from eccentricities and extravagance, from bad grammar and rhetorical faults, which might have depressed the standard of literature and corrupted public taste.

Reviewers compared her books, for literary execution, moral aim, and influence, with those of Hannah More, Mary Martha Sherwood, and Charlotte Elizabeth.

They inculcated high moral and religious sentiments, but were free from the dialectics of the schools, and from all sectarianism; and therefore they were found in the libraries of all Christian denominations.