Mark Twain on Travel [Hardcover]

Terry Mort (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2005 | Series: On

Experience the character of America, both the grimy and the golden, through the restless words of one of literature's most beloved authors.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Selections from Twain's five travel books (about excursions to the American West, the Pacific Islands, India, the Middle East and Europe) spotlight some of his choicest writing, though they lose his rich, digressive context. With the success of Innocents Abroad in 1869, Twain churned out travelogues for much-needed money, and refined the successful formula of pitting gullible middle-American protagonists against hardened high priests of the world's culture. Mort (The Reasonable Art of Fly Fishing) presents Twain's writing by themes, rather than chronology, starting with a boy's ambition to pilot the Big River of his youth, the Mississippi; Twain claims in one famous selection from Life on the Mississippi that he took his nom de plume from an ancient mariner who could best the gossiping fledglings by his reminiscences. Heading west into Nevada, Twain's young, unsuspecting narrator is swindled into buying a "Genuine Mexican Plug," among other dusty adventures. A journey to Australia (from Following the Equator) allows him to ponder racial genocide by the white squatters in Aboriginal land; while observing the caste system of India ("With them, all life seems to be sacred except human life") evokes childhood memories of the scarring injustice of Southern slavery. Prescient, ironic, frequently knee-slapping, Twain's work is eminently relevant. (Nov.)
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Review

Prescient, ironic, frequently knee-slapping, Twain's work is eminently relevant."--Publishers Weekly

"Prescient, ironic, frequently knee-slapping, Twain's work is eminently relevant."--Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Lyons Press (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592288065
• ISBN-13: 978-1592288069
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,127,925 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent survey of Twain's wit and wisdom, March 3, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mark Twain on Travel (Hardcover)

Writer Mark Twain is best known for his children's adventure books and his spirited humor, but Mark Twain On Travel offers a different set of insights, gathering under one cover his travel experiences and writings and revealing his colorful encounters with characters around the world. These spirited literary pieces are powerful travel observations which come from a range of publications and sources and together provide an excellent survey of Twain's wit and wisdom.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing!, January 26, 2006

By 

a reader (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mark Twain on Travel (Hardcover)

As a Mark Twain fan, I ordered this book on blind faith. It turned out that the best part of this volume was the introduction by the editor explaining why most of Mark Twain's travel books aren't very good. Indeed while I have read "Roughing It" a couple of times and enjoyed "Life on the Mississippi," I found Twain's other travel books, such as "Innocents Abroad," unreadable. I had hopes that this volume contained gems that had been mined from Twain's otherwise intractable travel volumes. Alas, this is not the case. This book only demonstrates further that most of Twain's travel writing isn't very good. Save your money for other Twain books, such as "Huckleberry Finn" or his "Autobiography," that have stood the test of time.

5.0 out of 5 stars Mark Twain at His Best, January 20, 2012

By 

Love To Read (Bucks County, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mark Twain on Travel (Paperback)

If you don't have the time to read all of Twain's travel books yet would like to experience his entertaining wit and keen perspectives, read this book. This is a collection of probably his best written travel experiences and proves to be very informative, humourous and thought-provoking. He's an honest writer and his non-fiction always sets me on a path to a new leg of personal research about a given subject. I was completely surprised that this would be such a fabulous book since I couldn't imagine a travel log being very interesting. It's a shame that some books don't make it to the bestseller list as this one should have and other crappy books do.