Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T23:37:46.186Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 9 - Travel Writing

from Part II - Literary Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2019

By
Jeffrey Melton
Edited by
John Bird
John Bird
Affiliation:
Winthrop University
Get access

Summary

Mark Twain’s first nationally successful book was The Innocents Abroad, a travel book that recounted his 1867 trip to Europe and the Holy Land, a huge best seller that made satiric comment on both the Old World and America, a combination of humor and straight description. Twain drew on the emerging tradition of American travel writing, often skewering the tradition and the form, but also helping its further development. Travel writing runs throughout Twain’s career, including Roughing It, A Tramp Abroad, Life on the Mississippi, and Following the Equator. In his time, Twain was more often considered and celebrated as a travel writer than a writer of fiction.

Keywords

Mark TwainSamuel Clemenstravel writingInnocent AbroadRoughing ItA Tramp AbroadLife on the MississippiFollowing the Equator
Type
Chapter
Information
Mark Twain in Context , pp. 91 - 99
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Bridgman, Richard. Traveling in Mark Twain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Fred. The Singular Mark Twain. New York: Doubleday, 2003.Google Scholar
Messent, Peter. Mark Twain. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twain, Mark. Roughing It. Ed. Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. The Oxford Mark Twain. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Ziff, Larzer. Return Passages: Great American Travel Writing, 1780–1910. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×