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Audiobook edition · 6 h 51 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when Mark Twain turns his sharpest wit on a movement that treats sickness as an error of the mind?
In Christian Science, Mark Twain takes aim at Mary Baker Eddy and the religious movement she founded. He mixes comic stories with close readings of her textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. His target is the teaching, as he understands it, that matter, pain and disease are errors of the mortal mind.
Twain also examines the woman behind the Church of Christ, Scientist. He mocks her prose and challenges her authority, yet respects her skill at building an organization. Beneath the jokes lies a serious worry about the church’s growth and concentrated power. This is an opponent’s argument, not a balanced guide to the faith.
What you’ll discover
- Belief under pressure Follow Twain as he questions claims about illness, thought and the power of healing.
- A textbook under scrutiny Watch his close reading turn bewilderment at Eddy’s prose into pointed, often comic criticism.
- Stories beside the argument Explore anecdotes Twain uses to bring his objections to Christian Science healing into focus.
- The founder in focus Meet Mary Baker Eddy through the eyes of a critic both fascinated and troubled.
- Power behind the teaching See why trained teachers, a fixed textbook and central authority draw Twain’s uneasy attention.
Who will love it
For readers who enjoy Twain's wit, American religious history, and sharp polemic about faith, authority, and the power of belief.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Twain Says Illness Is Not Imaginary
- A Hard Look at Eddy's Prose
- Stories Show the Doctrine at Work
- The Woman Behind the Movement
- Why Twain Feared the Church's Growth
- What the Satire Has Left Behind
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Scienza Cristiana
by Mark Twain · 1907
Mark Twain turns his humor on Mary Baker Eddy’s church, testing its claims about illness and the power built on belief.
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In short
Christian Science is Mark Twain's attack on a religious movement of his own day and on the woman who founded it. It was published in 1907, when Mary Baker Eddy was still alive and her Church of Christ, Scientist was spreading across America and abroad.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Twain Says Illness Is Not Imaginary
The book opens with the central teaching of Christian Science as Twain understood it. Eddy taught that matter, pain and disease are errors of the mortal mind, and that right thinking can dissolve them. Twain treats this as an idea that sounds grand and falls apart when you try to live by it. He does not doubt that people sometimes feel better after prayer or comfort. What he doubts is the leap from that fact to a general law.
He builds his case with comedy. He imagines the plain consequences of the doctrine, such as a broken leg that is declared not to be broken. The humor works because the reader sees at once how odd it would be to say this to a person in pain. Twain loves to take a solemn claim and walk it into a room full of ordinary facts.
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What is Mark Twain's Christian Science about?
It is Twain's critique of Christian Science and its founder Mary Baker Eddy. He mocks the teaching that illness is unreal, criticizes the textbook Science and Health, and examines Eddy's life and the church's growing power.
When did Mark Twain write Christian Science?
The book appeared in 1907. It built on magazine pieces Twain had written on the movement in the years before, and Mary Baker Eddy was still alive when it was published.
Did Mark Twain hate Christian Science?
He strongly opposed its doctrine and its authority, but he admired the skill with which the church was organized. He also granted that the mind can affect the body. His main target was the claim that illness is unreal.
The author
Mark Twain
1835–1910 · American humorist and novelist
Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, an American author born in Missouri in 1835. He lived in Hartford, Connecticut, from 1874 to 1891. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Prince and the Pauper (1881). He died in Redding, Connecticut, in 1910.
More by Mark Twain
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