The Innocents Abroad (eBook)
Praised as "an oasis in the desert of works on foreign travel" by the New York Herald, When it was initially released, ‘The Innocents Abroad’ was a huge hit and went on to become the best-selling book of Mark Twain's writing career. During a tour to Europe and the Holy Land in 1867, the author makes incisive and frequently humorous remarks about the people and places he encounters. This portrays the author at the pinnacle of his writing abilities.
The book, which began as a collection of travel essays written for a San Francisco newspaper, offers readers a vivid and refreshingly honest look at cities like Tangier, Marseilles, Gibraltar, Rome, Constantinople, and Damascus. When it comes to travelers who define their trip experiences more through travel guides than through firsthand observations, Twain's comedy adopts an especially scathing tone. The book blends humorous chapters with somber sections on statistics, history, and descriptions of artwork, buildings, and holy treasures.
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About the Author
Mark Twain is the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910). He was born and brought up in the American state of Missouri and, because of his father's death, he left school to earn his living when he was only twelve. He was a great adventurer and travelled round America as a printer; prospected for gold and set off for South America to earn his fortune. He returned to become a steam-boat pilot on the Mississippi River, close to where he had grown up. The Civil War put an end to steam-boating and Clemens briefly joined the Confederate army - although the rest of his family were Unionists! He had already tried his hand at newspaper reporting and now became a successful journalist. He started to use the alias Mark Twain during the Civil War and it was under this pen name that he became a famous travel writer. He took the name from his steam-boat days - it was the river pilots' cry to let their men know that the water was two fathoms deep.
Mark Twain was always nostalgic about his childhood and in 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published, based on his own experiences. The book was soon recognised as a work of genius and eight years later the sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, was published. The great writer Ernest Hemingway claimed that 'All modern literature stems from this one book.'
Mark Twain was soon famous all over the world. He made a fortune from writing and lost it on a typesetter he invented. He then made another fortune and lost it on a bad investment. He was an impulsive, hot-tempered man but was also quite sentimental and superstitious. He was born when Halley's Comet was passing the Earth and always believed he would die when it returned - this is exactly what happened.