In the early editions of the Millennial Dawn, there is a preface in which C. T. Russell acknowledges the assistance of his wife. I think it only appears in the first three volumes. I do not recall that he explained what the assistance was, whether writing or research or encouragement. Perhaps someone who has these early editions can look it up. This preface did not appear in later editions of Millennial Dawn or Studies in the Scriptures.
Much of the first volume, The Divine Plan of the Ages, was based on previous material, word-for-word, from articles that appeared in Zion's Watch Tower. For example, the chapter on the Explanation of the Chart of the Ages, and other chapters, was taken from Food for Thinking Christians in 1881. Some of the subjects had been written about numerous times. So it is not likely that Maria Russell wrote this volume.
Volumes 2 and 3 contain time proofs, with some modification and additional material, that appeared previously in the Three Worlds, and Day Dawn by Paton.
In the book Countdown To Armageddon, the author speculated that the extensive quotations in the Vol. 4 The Day of Vengeance might have been due to the estranged relationship of the Russells, and that Maria was not available to help with the writing.
I have not seen the divorce transcripts, but someone who has told me that Maria did claim to write some of the volumes, and that Charles denied it.
It is not likely that Maria had any part in Vol. 5 and 6, since these were published 1899 and 1903.
Maria had the ability to write the volumes and probably had more than time than Charles to do so, but Charles also had the ability. It is unlikely that we can know how much she contributed to them. It is likely that the conflict that they had in the editorial work contributed to the lack of authorship noted in the WT publications after that. Russell had a writing staff, and did have women on the writing staff. It is highly unlikely that Russell could have written the thousands of pages attributed to him, although he did dictate much.
Each of the Millennial Dawn volumes followed a well constructed plan, and were written with some care. But they do not make for easy reading today, partly because of the language, but also because the doctrinal and chronological subject matter. Vol. 6 is especially verbose, with long-winded sentences, and flowery Victorian language.
