Christian Science begins, as Garry Wills notes in his introduction, with Twain's description of a man who "falls off a cliff and finds his bones projecting from him like the arms of a hat rack. After a course of treatment from a Christian Science practitioner, he calls in a veterinarian and pays the Christian Scientist with an imaginary check for an imaginary cure." Although Twain recognized that everyone was born with "the power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or make it sick," he was deeply ...
Read More
Christian Science begins, as Garry Wills notes in his introduction, with Twain's description of a man who "falls off a cliff and finds his bones projecting from him like the arms of a hat rack. After a course of treatment from a Christian Science practitioner, he calls in a veterinarian and pays the Christian Scientist with an imaginary check for an imaginary cure." Although Twain recognized that everyone was born with "the power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or make it sick," he was deeply suspicious of the empire-building, power-mongering, delusions, and evasions of the founder of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy. Wills notes that "Christian Science can be read at several levels, all rewarding--first, as a satire on Christian Science's wilder pretensions and its founder's deceptions; then, as an example of Twain's regard for language as the indicator of mental and moral conditions; and finally as part of a biographical descent into the nihilism of his last days. On all these counts the book gets us very close to the heart of American culture."
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Like New. Size: 6x1x9; Hardcover and dust jacket. Good binding and cover. Light edge wear. Clean, unmarked pages. Colorful, irreverent, romantic, skeptical, a master of comic asides, a bittersweet humorist, and an unflinching critic of human pretensions, Mark Twain speaks to us across time with verve and wisdom. Now, under the direction of noted Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin, and with fresh appreciations by a pantheon of leading writers and scholars, comes The Oxford Mark Twain: 29 glorious volumes of facsimile first editions that promise to let Mark Twain, in all his richness and complexity, inspire, entertain, instruct, and delight.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
xxxvii; 362p; 20p afterword and acknowledgements. A 1/2 dark red cloth hardcover book in very good condition. No dustjacket. Sticker residue on spine. Card pocket reisdue inside front cover. Former owner's private library stamps on endpapers and title page. Otherwise clean and tight. A sometimes humorous collection of essays critiquing Christian Science and its foundress, Mary Baker Eddy. From the Oxford Mark Twain series. Main text is a facsimile of the 1907 edition. Foreword by Shelley Fisher Fishkin; introduction by Garry Wills; afterword by Hamlin Hill.
