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The Innocents Abroad
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The Innocents Abroad Paperback - 2002

by Mark Twain; Introduction by Tom Quirk; Notes by Guy Cardwell

Based on a series of letters Mark 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 fresh and humorous perspective on hallowed European landmarks lacked reverence for the past-the ancient statues of saints on the Cathedral of Notre Dame are "battered and broken-nosed old fellows" and tour guides "interrupt every dream, every pleasant train of thought, with their tiresome cackling." Equally irreverent about American manners (including his own) as he is about European attitudes, Twain ultimately concludes that, for better or worse, "human nature is very much the same all over the world."


About this book

The Innocents Abroad, also known as The New Pilgrims’ Progress, was written by American author Mark Twain, and first published by the American Publishing Company in 1869. The humorous travel book follows the voyage of Mark Twain and his fellow travelers on a retired Civil War ship titled the USS Quaker City. While traveling through Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land, Mark Twain critically (but comically) examines both his tourist shipmates and the tour guides he encounters throughout his travels. While also famous for such novels as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Innocents Abroad was Mark Twain’s bestselling book during his lifetime.

Summary

Based on a series of letters Mark 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 fresh and humorous perspective on hallowed European landmarks lacked reverence for the past-the ancient statues of saints on the Cathedral of Notre Dame are "battered and broken-nosed old fellows" and tour guides "interrupt every dream, every pleasant train of thought, with their tiresome cackling." Equally irreverent about American manners (including his own) as he is about European attitudes, Twain ultimately concludes that, for better or worse, "human nature is very much the same all over the world."

From the publisher

Based on a series of letters Mark 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 fresh and humorous perspective on hallowed European landmarks lacked reverence for the past-the ancient statues of saints on the Cathedral of Notre Dame are "battered and broken-nosed old fellows" and tour guides "interrupt every dream, every pleasant train of thought, with their tiresome cackling." Equally irreverent about American manners (including his own) as he is about European attitudes, Twain ultimately concludes that, for better or worse, "human nature is very much the same all over the world." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

First Edition Identification

The first edition of Innocents Abroad was published by American Publishing Company in Hartford Connecticut in 1869. Sales of the novel, including pirated editions, quickly rose to over 200,000. 

Details

  • Title The Innocents Abroad
  • Author Mark Twain; Introduction by Tom Quirk; Notes by Guy Cardwell
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition New Ed
  • Pages 560
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Group, London, United Kingdom
  • Date 2002-07-30
  • ISBN 9780142437087 / 0142437085
  • Weight 0.84 lbs (0.38 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.78 x 5.04 x 1.03 in (19.76 x 12.80 x 2.62 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Library of Congress subjects Europe - Description and travel, Middle East - Description and travel
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2002019070
  • Dewey Decimal Code B

About the author

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, in 1835, and died at Redding, Connecticut in 1910. In his person and in his pursuits he was a man of extraordinary contrasts. Although he left school at twelve when his father died, he was eventually awarded honorary degrees from Yale University, the University of Missouri, and Oxford University. His career encompassed such varied occupations as printer, Mississippi riverboat pilot, journalist, travel writer, and publisher. He made fortunes from his writing but toward the end of his life he had to resort to lecture tours to pay his debts. He was hot-tempered, profane, and sentimental--and also pessimistic, cynical, and tortured by self-doubt. His nostalgia helped produce some of his best books. He lives in American letters as a great artist, the writer whom William Dean Howells called "the Lincoln of our literature."

Tom Quirk is the Catherine Paine Middlebush Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the editor of the Penguin Classics editions of Mark Twain's Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches (1994) and Ambrose Bierce's Tales of Soldiers and Civilians and Other Stories (2000) and co-editor of The Portable American Realism Reader (1997). His other books include Coming to Grips with Huckleberry Finn (1993), Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction (1997) and Nothing Abstract: Investigations in the American Literary Imagination (2001).


Guy Cardwell has written several books on Mark Twain and is emeritus professor of English at Washington University

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