What titles did Eddy consider for the Christian Science textbook?

Recently we were asked if Mary Baker Eddy originally intended to title the Christian Science textbook Christian Science. We do not find any evidence of this. However, Eddy did originally give her book another title before choosing Science and Health.

The name Eddy first used for this seminal work was The Science of Life. She began the manuscript in 1872 and obtained copyright for it in 1874. Then, after learning that the title was already in use, she selected Science and Health.¹

The 6th (1883) through the 15th (1885) editions of the textbook were published under the title Science and Health; with a Key to the Scriptures. Beginning with the 16th edition (1886), and going forward, the title was Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Eddy highlighted her experience naming Science and Health in a 1902 Communion address, given in Mechanics Hall in Boston, Massachusetts:

Six weeks I waited on God to suggest a name for the book I had been writing. Its title, Science and Health, came to me in the silence of night, when the steadfast stars watched over the world, — when slumber had fled, — and I rose and recorded the hallowed suggestion. The following day I showed it to my literary friends, who advised me to drop both the book and the title. To this, however, I gave no heed, feeling sure that God had led me to write that book, and had whispered that name to my waiting hope and prayer. It was to me the ‘still, small voice’ that came to Elijah after the earthquake and the fire. Six months thereafter Miss Dorcas Rawson of Lynn brought to me Wyclif’s translation of the New Testament, and pointed out that identical phrase, ‘Science and Health,’ which is rendered in the Authorized Version ‘knowledge of salvation.’ This was my first inkling of Wyclif’s use of that combination of words, or of their rendering. To-day I am the happy possessor of a copy of Wyclif, the invaluable gift of two Christian Scientists, — Mr. W. Nicholas Miller, K.C., and Mrs. F. L. Miller, of London, England. ²

Anna B. White Baker was a friend and student of Eddy. She gave further details about that event in her undated reminiscence:

During the summer of 1902, when I was again with her [Eddy], she called me to see a gift from abroad. It was a copy of the Wycliffe New Testament sent to her by some students in London. It bore the date 1380, and was said to be the earliest translation. A marker had been placed at Luke 1:78-79, which read as follows:-

 

“And thou child shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to make ready his ways, for to bring Science and Health (to give knowledge and salvation) to His people, unto remission of their sins, by the entrails of (through the tender) mercy of our God, in the which the springing up from on high (whereby the dayspring) hath visited us (for) to give light to them that sit in darkness, in the shadow of death, for to dress (to guide) our feet into the way of peace. So help (therefore) the child was comforted in spirit and was in the desert till the day of his shining (appearing) to Israel.”

 

When she had finished reading this to me, she said, “See there, was anything more like a repetition of my life! For six weeks I fasted, eating nothing but bread and sometimes a pear because I had no money, although I had a hundred patients a day. I refused to treat them, and waited to hear what God had to say, then I wrote my book. When I showed it to my friends, they said, ‘Do not publish it.’ I took it afterwards to the literati, and they said, ‘If you publish it, you will be pronounced insane.’ I called it ‘Science and Health’ and knew that it was to bring health and peace to the world through the remission of sin.”³

Eddy did once again briefly consider a change to the title of Science and Health. This is explained in the reminiscence of Adam H. Dickey, one of her secretaries:

On one occasion Mrs. Eddy called me into her room, and I found her considering a change in the title of her book Science and Health. Instead of having it “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” she proposed making it read, “Science and Health, Key to the Scriptures.”…

 

Mrs. Eddy was quite pleased with the idea and spoke favorably of it. She talked it over with her Publisher and explained that she would like to make this change in the title of her book, provided it did not conflict in any way with her copyrights.

 

Mr. Stewart, her publisher at that time, made inquiry from Mrs. Eddy’s Boston lawyers and the word came back that they would not advise her to do this as it might materially affect the copyrights of her book.

 

Thus was abandoned one of the inspired thoughts that came to our Leader, which would have considerably enlarged the thought of all Christian Scientists regarding her book “Science and Health.” I shall always look on the whole book as “Key to the Scriptures” as I am sure she desired that Christian Scientists should.⁴