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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
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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

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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

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