Collected Nonfiction: Life on the Mississippi, The Innocents Abroad, and Roughing It

by Mark Twain

Overview

These three travel memoirs by the beloved author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn capture nineteenth-century life in America and beyond.
 
Life on the Mississippi: Before Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain, he trained to be a Mississippi River steamboat pilot. Here Twain recounts his apprenticeship under legendary captain Horace Bixby, the dramatic fates of riverboat gamblers, and much more. Years later, as a passenger on a voyage from St. Louis to New Orleans, he witnesses the changes wrought by the Civil War and the steady advance of railroad transportation.
 
The Innocents Abroad: Based on a series of letters first published in American newspapers, this is Twain’s hilarious and insightful account of an organized tour of Europe and the Holy Land, undertaken in 1867. With trademark satirical wit, he skewers the pretensions of Americans overseas and delights in tormenting local tour guides. First published in 1869, The Innocents Abroad made Twain a national celebrity and remains one of the bestselling travelogues of all time.
 
Roughing It: In 1861, Twain joined his older brother on a stagecoach journey from Missouri to Carson City, Nevada. Having planned to be gone for only three months, he spent the next “six or seven years” exploring the great American frontier, from the Rocky Mountains to Hawaii. Along the way, he made and lost a theoretical fortune, danced in the finest hotels of San Francisco, and came to terms with freezing to death in a snow bank—only to discover, in the light of morning, that he was fifteen steps from a comfortable inn.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504064644
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	09/15/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	1144
Sales rank:	848,133
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910), who grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, and worked as a printer, riverboat pilot, newspaperman, and silver miner before his short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” brought him international attention. He would go on to write two of the great American novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and many other enduring works of fiction, satire, and travelogue. He is one of the most widely recognized figures in US history.

Mark Twain, who was born Samuel L. Clemens in Missouri in 1835, wrote some of the most enduring works of literature in the English language, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was his last completed book—and, by his own estimate, his best. Its acquisition by Harper & Brothers allowed Twain to stave off bankruptcy. He died in 1910. 

Date of Birth:

November 30, 1835

Date of Death:

April 21, 1910

Place of Birth:

Florida, Missouri

Place of Death:

Redding, Connecticut