Product Description

Based on letters Twain wrote from Europe to newspapers in San Francisco and New York as a roving correspondent, THE INNOCENTS ABROAD (1869) is a burlesque of the sentimental travel books popular in the mid-nineteenth century. Twain's perspective was fresh and irreverent: tour guides, he writes, 'interrupt every dream, every pleasant train of thought, with their tiresome cackling' and the saints on the Cathedral of Notre Dame are 'battered and broken-nosed old fellows'. As unimpressed by American manners as he is by European attitudes, Twain concludes that 'human nature is very much the same all over the world'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #126730 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

About the Author
Mark Twain (1835-1910) was born Samuel Longhorn Clemens in Florida. A satirist, and keen observer of American society, he is one of America's greatest novelists. His works include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Tom Quirk is the Catherine Paine Middlebursh Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has written several books and is the editor of Twain's Tales, Speeches, Essays and Sketches for Penguin Classics.

Customer Reviews

Innocents Abroad
Easily the greatest travel book ever written. The language is so easy to read concidering that its over 100 years old. Every page contains one or more gems of humour. I just could not stop laughing all the way through. Ive read it twice now and Im sure to read it again and again. Fabulous

Original and exciting tales of 19th century travels
Until reading this book I had little, even no perception of the way of life in mainland Europe in the 19th century. Yet after reading Twain's 'The Innocents Abroad' I couldn't help but feel refreshed and energised. My first thought when I got to the last page was that I had to visit the amazing places that he did 150 years ago.

I could never get bored of his sarcastic yet so true statements about the people and places he saw. I particularly enjoyed his synomonous accounts of busy and boisterous Napoli (Naples, Italy) and he really brought all the senses of what the city was like to me through the pages.

Despite being written so long ago it is suprising to see how little the world has changed apart from mass technological discovery. If all travel writers were as honest and 'frank' as Twain then I would be sure that we would all have a better judgement and sense of how the world around us really works.

A historical and cultural masterpieve written by one of America's most treasured and prized authors.

Classic Mark Twain - Characters we still recognize today
This book describes a group tour of "Europe and the Holy Land" Samuel Clemens experienced and reported about 100 years ago. He describes, in a way that only Mark Twain can, the people he meets and the places they go from the point of view from the American West. One memorable example of his American perspective is a comparison of Italian mountains, lakes and rivers with his beloved Rockies, Tahoe, and Mississippi. He also paints humorous portraits of the tour guides and his fellow travelers. The first time I read this book I was on an organized bus tour in Europe and quickly realized how many of Twain's human observations on how tourists are treated still apply, which makes the humor very accessible.