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The Innocents Abroad

3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 · rating details · 4,502 ratings · 386 reviews

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835. He gained national attention as a humourist in 1865 with the publication of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," but was acknowledged as a great writer by the literary establishment with The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (1885). In 1880, Twain began promoting and financing the ill-fated Paige typesetter,...more

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Published January 26th 2011 by Library of Alexandria (first published 1869)

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Jun 09, 2008 Bryce Wilson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-lit

God you've got to love Twain.

A funny sacred cow roasting romp through Europe and The Middle East, taking on stereotypes, high society, and decorum with a shotgun blast to the face. However, this is young amused by humanities flaws Mark Twain, not embittered "Fuck the World." Mark Twain. So there's still plenty of room for real wonder and occasional awe.

Plus it has the best reaction to a Mummy you will ever see.

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Aug 24, 2007 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone with a cynic's eye of the world

When I lived in Madrid years ago I used to buy pistachios from an Iranian refugee in Retiro Park. I don't recall his name, but I decided to call him Stan. It drove him crazy, but I called him Stan anyway. Why did I call him Stan?

One word: Ferguson.

Ferguson is every tour guide that graces the pages of Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad. The author and his cohort call their guides Ferguson, whether in Paris or in Athens. The name drives each Ferguson crazy, but they do it anyway. And regardless of...more

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Jan 14, 2011 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel is part stand-up comedy and part history lesson. Throughout this novel Twain is hysterically funny, irreverent, lampooning and blatantly racist--a classic American traveling abroad. This travel log touches upon almost every tourist spot in Europe, North Africa and the Holy Land. Twain covers many of the most important sites in Europe in a very thorough manner. The text would become tedious if not for the wit and clever turning of phrases throughout the novel. The humor does have quite...more This novel is part stand-up comedy and part history lesson. Throughout this novel Twain is hysterically funny, irreverent, lampooning and blatantly racist--a classic American traveling abroad. This travel log touches upon almost every tourist spot in Europe, North Africa and the Holy Land. Twain covers many of the most important sites in Europe in a very thorough manner. The text would become tedious if not for the wit and clever turning of phrases throughout the novel. The humor does have quite an edge. The racism and bigotry showed by the author in this piece does not kill the story, in my estimation, it only makes Twain a man of his time.

He walks up to the top inside the Leaning Tower of Pisa, visits Florence and the Vatican, sees holy sites throughout, current day, Israel and Jordan, even visits the Sphinx and the pyramids. In many ways, Twain remains unchanged by his journey. He feels that the clergy at every church are trying to rip him off with fake relics; of course, often he is right. The prejudices that he carried with him do not change. He refers to Muslims as "pagans" and "savages," equating them with his low view of the Native Americans (p.406). He and his companions refused to use the names of their guides, instead refer to one and all as "Ferguson." "Of course the real name of the place is El something of other, but the boys still refuse to recognize the Arab names or try to pronounce them" (p.299).

There are some great scenes in this novel. Twain at the grave of Adam in the Holy Land, from Adam and Eve fame, he breaks down sobbing over visiting the grave of a long lost 'relative' this far from home. Six thousand years down the family tree, in the author's estimation, but still a relation. Twain and his companion's riding through the desert on battered, broken horses with purple parasols to keep the sun off of them is a wonderful image.

Good quotes: p.311 "I could not conceive of a small country having so large a history."
p.424 "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness, and many of our people needed it sorely on these accounts."
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Jan 12, 2013 Fran Darling rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After finishing a mammoth biography of Mark Twain this past year - I decided I need to read more of his actual works. I read the usual Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn as a young adult, but never ventured into any others. This is one of his first books that was to become popular and boost him to fame past that of journalist/short-story favorite. (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was written 10 yrs later)
His account of major countries in Europe and middle east around the Mediterranean are so far rea...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Bob Foulkes rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Innocents Abroad has been on my bookshelf to read for some time. I deflected the imperative to read it by giving it to my son, but when he returned it, I decided to dive in. This is one of Twain's famous books. He embarks on a voyage to Europe and the Middle East in 1869. Obviously dated and extensively written (he could have used a good editor), it is nevertheless worth the time it takes to sit down and enjoy his story. The book was a compilation of letters to a San Francisco newspaper; wel...more

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Mar 01, 2012 Thom Swennes rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad is a travel book. I have no doubt that it is a travel book because that is exactly how Mark Twain described it. It is, however, much more than a travel book. It is a classic example of how American’s (more often than not) behave in foreign countries. The passing of 145 years (published in 1867) hasn’t changed the American mentality in the least. Twain’s pilgrimage was to southern Europe and the Holy Lands. His descriptions of fellow passengers and people they met we...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Nicholas Whyte rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1740391...

Apparently this was one of the books that cemented the young Mark Twain's reputation, an account of a cruise to the Mediterranean by a group of several dozen American tourists, taking in Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Constantinople, Russia's Black Sea coast, the Holy Land and Egypt. It's a work of poking fun at the Old World and also at the New, steeped in the inevitable prejudices of the day but with some decent lines.

Some of the scenes are made all the m...more

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Aug 30, 2009 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an account of Mark Twain's several month voyage to Europe, Africa and the Middle East on the steamship Quaker City in 1867.

Twain blows through the trip as a full-bore American discovering that places outside the good ole USA by and large suck. He and his friends enjoy tormenting all of their tour guides by calling them all "Ferguson" and asking stupid questions, such as of the ancient painters, "Is he dead?" The tour guides never catch on. He compares Lake Como to Lake Tahoe (Tahoe wins)...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Dave rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, humor

“The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress” is Twain’s second book, though he undoubtedly would have preferred it be his first book, given his destruction of the plates for “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches”. Nevertheless, this is an early work, and yet it already shows Twain’s skill as a writer, and his development into one of the greatest writers of all time.

The Oxford Mark Twain series is a wonderful collection. Each book is a facsimile of the firs...more “The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress” is Twain’s second book, though he undoubtedly would have preferred it be his first book, given his destruction of the plates for “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches”. Nevertheless, this is an early work, and yet it already shows Twain’s skill as a writer, and his development into one of the greatest writers of all time.

The Oxford Mark Twain series is a wonderful collection. Each book is a facsimile of the first editions of his works (with a few noted exceptions), and the works are supplemented with a “Foreword” by the editor of the series (Note the Foreword appears to be the same for each book in the series), an “Introduction” from a writer for whom the work had particular impact, and an “Afterword” from a scholar who examines the work in the context of the time and place in which it was written. The editor of the series is Shelley Fisher Fishkin, a professor of American Studies and English and an author of multiple books on Mark Twain. The “Introduction” in this volume is by Mordecai Richler, and the “Afterword” by David E. E. Sloane.

In the “Introduction”, Mordecai Richler (Canadian author, screenwriter, and essayist) discusses his view of travel, and contrasts that with Twain’s wonderful journey to Europe and the Holy Land. He also discusses the impact that Twain had on his life and continues to compare his experiences with Twain’s. It is a good introduction, and Richler has some interesting points to make about the role this book had on history, and literature.

The book itself is an incredible work. At around 650 pages, Twain delivers a very humorous book, pieces of which could fall into areas of history, travelogue, sociology, or even religion. Overall though, this is yet another splendid example of Twain’s ability to tell stories. There are a couple of parts early on in the book where the humor feels a bit forced, but those sections are few, and once you get past the first third of the book they are gone from his writing. Twain takes aim at everything in the course of this book, from his fellow passengers and crew of the ship, to the tour guides, the endless supply of religious artifacts and questionable claims, to the cultures of the areas that he visits. Nothing seems to escape his keen wit, and the reader benefits from this as much today as they did in 1869 when the book was first published.

David E. E. Sloane has written an outstanding “Afterword” for this volume. In which he discusses all the work that Twain put into turning his columns into the book. Twain cleaned up the language, and really sharpened his focus, which undoubtedly is why this was one of his bestselling books while he was alive, and continues to be one of his most read works. Mr. Sloane also discusses the history of the times surrounding this book, and in particular influences such as Artemus Ward and P. T. Barnum, as well as other works from the time. He also provides a section for further reading, which gives those who are interested some valuable resources to find out more about Twain and the writing of “The Innocents Abroad”.
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Nov 17, 2011 Alene rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, travel

Twain's report on his extended vacation through Europe and the Holy land. I loved it, definitely gave new perspective on some places I've been and taught me that apparently, the beauty of Lake Tahoe cannot be surpassed by any European lake : ) Guess I need to see Lake Tahoe since I never have.

Really I loved his humor about the possibility of all the holy places really being where the churches were built for them and the holy relics being authentic. For example, he jokes about how there can be n...more

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Jan 24, 2012 John Harder rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Twain’s The Innocents Abroad is a travel book, chronicling the escapades and adventures of the roughly 60 passengers on board the Quaker City. The “pilgrims” shuttled about the Mediterranean with side jaunts through France and the holy land. Twain, as we all are, was a man of his time. This means that he is as filled with the provincial prejudices of his day, but he seems to recognize he prejudices and is able to laugh at himself.

Some passages or gruesomely humorous, such as his account in which...more

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May 09, 2008 Lindsay Roberts added it · review of another edition

Mark Twain's characteristic wit make this an enjoyable read, but I am a bit frustrated with the lack of plot so far. Also, the narrator-character that Twain's constructed for himself can be a bit choppy at times, changing rapidly from sensitive observer to ignorant Yank. Nevertheless, Twain's criticisms of his fellow American travelers still ring embarrassingly true.

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Sep 21, 2008 Derek rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: could-not-finish, borrowed-do-not-own

10 percent humorous versus 90 percent tedium. And that may even be a generous assessment.

The humor is actually laugh-out-loud humor - and I rarely LOL while reading - but the tedium... oh, the tedium! It became more and more of a trudge.

I may yet give this another try, as I really do *want* to read more Twain, but not in the foreseeable future.

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Feb 12, 2013 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I could be wrong, but seeing all the disapproving comments about the racism, xenophobia and other such things in the book, no doubt they reflected the attitudes of many at the time, but I took them not to reflect Twain's own attitudes but just the opposite - that he is holding up a mirror, much ahead of his time, to these things - mocking them and those who hold them. I don't know much (yet) about his biography - am I wrong ? Is it established these were actually his attitudes ? I don't see how...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Marc Weitz rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found myself anxious to read this book expecting to enjoy the application of Mark Twain's wit to traveling abroad in Europe in 1867. The wit was there but hidden away amongst loads and loads of boring descriptions and events. Reading this book was like watching soccer: there were moments of interest tucked away in long minutes of people running around in a circle. So much so, that when the funny or interesting parts came up, I found that I would miss the beginning because I had zoned out.

This...more I found myself anxious to read this book expecting to enjoy the application of Mark Twain's wit to traveling abroad in Europe in 1867. The wit was there but hidden away amongst loads and loads of boring descriptions and events. Reading this book was like watching soccer: there were moments of interest tucked away in long minutes of people running around in a circle. So much so, that when the funny or interesting parts came up, I found that I would miss the beginning because I had zoned out.

This book is about Mark Twain's trip to Europe in 1867 aboard a cruise ship. Surprisingly, this is one of Mark Twain's early works. A travelogue is usually the type of book written by an established author, whom the reader anticipates hearing their perspective on traveling based on being a fan of their fiction.

I'll start with the goods parts: First there are some very funny parts. Mark Twain does a great job making fun of the places he goes to and dealing with the constant cultural differences and people trying to sell them goods they don't need. Also, it interesting to read that travel 150 years ago wasn't all that different. Some of the conversations and complaints Mark Twain has with his traveling companions sound amazingly like those I have today with my friends. I viewed this period as a golden age of travel, but, for example, shops in Paris put up signs saying that they speak English, when they didn't, only to lure tourists in to buy goods. And wherever Twain goes, he is hounded by men offering to be his guide.

The bad part: Most of it. So boring that I felt like I was reading a text book. Long, long, long descriptions of the places they visited that I could care less about. This was before photography really took off, so these long descriptions were for the benefit of the reader. It's also ironic that at the end is Mark Twain's famous quote "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." because he spends almost the entire book bagging on foreigners, their culture, and comparing it to back home where things are better. I finished reading this book with the impression that everyone and everything abroad just sucks, except for a few pretty churches here and there.

Skip this boring book.(less)

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Jun 28, 2011 Maggie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club-read, classics, favorite-authors, library-copy, non-fiction

This is one of those books which I think time has not been kind to. All of the information was interesting, the little stories were a mixture of merely amusing, hysterically funny, and over-the-top annoying, and then there were the chapters which were absolutely fabulous--so well written and beautiful that I begged for an entire book of that kind of writing.

Part of the problem here is that the world has become so politically correct that all the members of my book club agreed that we cringed at...more

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Oct 26, 2009 Erin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I didn't find this book as funny as I thought it would be, although Twain says many clever things and pokes plenty of fun at his group of Americans traveling the world. They certainly discover that the world is much more than what is described in history and guide books - more diverse, boring, dirty, beautiful, interesting, etc than they had previously thought.

Some of the things I enjoyed about this book:
the illustrations
the travelers call all their local guides Ferguson, just to keep things si...more

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Jun 30, 2011 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I recently watched the PBS program on Mark Twain, and decided to pick this up as one of the few of his works I haven't read. I love his humor, he could be so caustic and sarcastic and somehow endearing at the same time. I wish I had met him.

Reading this book took me back to a time of much international travel in my teens. I was a shy teenager, so I watched with horror as my family typefied the "Ugly American" stereotype he plays with here. He also captures that sense of the awe of the shear weig...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Lissa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: skimmed-it, ebook

For Literature with Lunch -- I enjoyed the book more after I researched "subscription books" and understood that Twain was padding his book contents to make an extra thick book so that people who bought it on subscription would feel like they got their money's worth. I imagine that I would have enjoyed his lecture tours a great deal more than this text -- or an audio version. I kept trying to read this too quickly to get all of the jokes, which are worked into the turn of a phrase -- well, actua...more

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Jan 20, 2013 Lindz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wow, I really enjoyed this book. I read 3 Mark Twain books so far, Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, and this book, and this was my favorite one out of those three. I probably would not have read this book if I wasn't reading this book for a school project, but I am really glad that I decided to read this book.

This book was very interesting to me because Twain travels to many different countries and comments on them. It was amazing to follow him on these many adventures, and it felt like I w...more

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May 13, 2012 Daven rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This travelogue would never, ever make it to wide release in 2012; at the least, there would be outcry of political inappropriateness, and possibly further, a holy war declared. Twain's disdain for organized religion does not bleed into his reverence for Anglo-Christian tradition and faith. But his vicious observations on the peoples and places of the Middle East / "Holy Land" are jarring. Once winces at the irreverance, and these commentaries' relic-like status cannot lift them from sinking to...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Rob rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, humor, 2011, library-books

The Innocents Abroad seems to be regarded as Mark Twain's definitive travel book; but I liked both Roughing It and A Tramp Abroad better. This book is derived from a series of newspaper columns he wrote while abroad, and he didn't quite succeed at transforming them into a single, coherent narrative.

Twain does get in a few good digs at the "pilgrims" (devout Christians visiting the Holy Land), and his account of visiting the holiest places in Jerusalem is seething with barely-restrained skepticis...more The Innocents Abroad seems to be regarded as Mark Twain's definitive travel book; but I liked both Roughing It and A Tramp Abroad better. This book is derived from a series of newspaper columns he wrote while abroad, and he didn't quite succeed at transforming them into a single, coherent narrative.

Twain does get in a few good digs at the "pilgrims" (devout Christians visiting the Holy Land), and his account of visiting the holiest places in Jerusalem is seething with barely-restrained skepticism. That he doesn't come right out and denounce them for superstitious silliness is no doubt because he didn't want to offend three-fourths of his potential audience.

The best passage in the book is quoted below. He and several shipmates decided to have lunch in Constantinople (İstanbul to us), but did not meet with satisfaction:

I never shall want another Turkish lunch. The cooking apparatus was in the little lunch room, near the bazaar, and it was all open to the street. The cook was slovenly, and so was the table, and it had no cloth on it. The fellow took a mass of sausage meat and coated it round a wire and laid it on a charcoal fire to cook. When it was done, he laid it aside and a dog walked sadly in and nipped it. He smelt it first, and probably recognized the remains of a friend. The cook took it away from him and laid it before us. Jack said, "I pass"—he plays euchre sometimes—and we all passed in turn. Then the cook baked a broad, flat, wheaten cake, greased it well with the sausage, and started towards us with it. It dropped in the dirt, and he picked it up and polished it on his breeches, and laid it before us. Jack said, "I pass." We all passed. He put some eggs in a frying pan, and stood pensively prying slabs of meat from between his teeth with a fork. Then he used the fork to turn the eggs with—and brought them along. Jack said "Pass again." All followed suit. We did not know what to do, and so we ordered a new ration of sausage. The cook got out his wire, apportioned a proper amount of sausage-meat, spat it on his hands and fell to work! This time, with one accord, we all passed out. We paid and left. That is all I learned about Turkish lunches. A Turkish lunch is good, no doubt, but it has its little drawbacks.

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Dec 23, 2007 michael rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: mark twain-heads

i'm not sure books like this are written anymore, and for good reason.

alternatively boring and brilliant, but always kind of tedious. and makes a good argument against people who think twain had "complex," "reedemable" views on race.

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Oct 26, 2012 Bernard Norcott-mahany rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When people hear the name Mark Twain, they likely think about The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But Twain had written a lot before either of those works came out. For many years he had been a newspaper correspondent and commentator, often writing humorous pieces, or “slice of life” pieces with a humorous twist (think of someone like Dave Barry). In 1867, Twain set off on a pleasure cruise to Europe and the Holy Land aboard the Quaker City with the in...more When people hear the name Mark Twain, they likely think about The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But Twain had written a lot before either of those works came out. For many years he had been a newspaper correspondent and commentator, often writing humorous pieces, or “slice of life” pieces with a humorous twist (think of someone like Dave Barry). In 1867, Twain set off on a pleasure cruise to Europe and the Holy Land aboard the Quaker City with the intentions of sending back dispatches about his travel to the Daily Alta California of San Francisco; he also sent dispatches to the New York Tribune and the New York Herald. You can see the itinerary with dispatches sent to the newspapers by clicking here. Click here to see a copy of the travel prospectus, and here to see the passenger list. Upon his return to the United States, he commenced on a lecture tour about the trip called “The American Vandal Abroad,” a version of which you can read by clicking here (Note: there is no definitive version of any of Twain’s speeches – he would often improvise before an audience, and a speech delivered before one audience might vary greatly from a speech delivered elsewhere). And, in 1869, Innocents Abroad: or the New Pilgrims’ Progress, was published to great critical and popular acclaim. The book was Twain’s most popular work during his lifetime.
The book is ostensibly a travelogue, a genre that remains popular (cf. Michael Palin’s books of recent years, such as Sahara) and which goes back at least as far as the 2nd c. CE (Pausanias’ Guide to Greece which has served as an indispensable help in reconstructing ancient buildings now lost). Of course, Twain’s travelogue is only part travelogue. A lot of it allows Twain to make humorous and sometimes biting observations of his fellow passengers, and on the locals they meet along the way.
Twain was a master of irony. In this book, this often takes the form of gently ironic observations of people and their idiosyncrasies, as when he observes on the boat over that everyone starts out their voyage eager to keep a travel journal (just as he is doing with his dispatches), but soon, the initial enthusiasm wears off, and such noble intentions fall by the wayside. And he himselfmakes quick work of the voyage home, stating that his own diary entries for the journey home were sparse and perfunctory.
Twain is quick to point out the differences between our expectations and realities – he notes that the pilgrims all have come to expect a land of wild romance in the Middle East, full of menacing Bedouins, who have to be kept at bay by sharpshooting, eagle-eyed tourists. They got these notions from reading travel guides high on romantic exaggeration and low in relation to reality. As it turned out, the locals were people simply trying to make a living from the tourists, and the weapons the locals carried in the Middle East were so old and rusty they posed no risk to the travelers. Twain suggests he had more to fear from his gun-totin’ fellow travelers than from the supposedly dangerous locals.
Twain also has an eye for the unusual as evidenced by his chapter on the visit to a Capuchin convent in which the former monks skeletal remains are left about and arranged in neat piles or into artistic representations. The abbot who gives Twain and company the tour seems to know each and every bone lying around – this here is Brother Anselmo, and that’s Brother Thomas and so on. Twain has a gruesome fascination with this whole scene and goes into a vivid 2 page description of the crypt, described as something one might have seen in the Renaissance, had Michelangelo and others used skeletons as their preferred medium. Twain gets an ironic jab at his guide when he notes that the abbot himself speaks wistfully of his brothers’ remains, adding “I thought he even looked as if he were thinking, with complacent vanity, that his own skull would look well on top of the heap and his own ribs add a charm to the frescoes which possibly they lacked at present.”
As they travel through Europe and on to the Holy Land, Twain also reflects a bitter disappointment between the ideals of Christianity and its practice. As someone raised in the Protestant tradition, and not a very fervent Christian himself, he views Catholicism with a bemused and somewhat critical eye, but more than once he notes the discrepancy between the professed Chrisitianity of some of his fellow pilgrims and their intolerance of others who differ from them in belief. On the other hand, he is very impressed with some of the monasteries in the desert of the Holy Land. The monks there welcome rich and poor alike and all are treated to radical hospitality which impresses Twain as fitting the spirit of Christianity.
The work has an added fascination in depicting the Americo-centric view of Twain and his travelers. In their travels, Twain and his company refer to all tour guides as “Ferguson” as that is easy to remember and pronounce than the guides’ real names (which Twain never tells us). And while Twain is very sensitive to and observant of the discrepancy between reality and our perceptions thereof, he never fully escapes the prejudices of his own age – unless, here too, he is pulling our leg.
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Aug 08, 2012 Margery rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you love to travel -- and even if you don't -- this book is a must read. Twain was able to book passage on a world tour, by ship, that was the talk of the nation back in the day. It was touted as a tour of the Holy Land, but, in fact, took passengers on a grand excursion of Europe and the Middle East. Anyone who has traveled to the same destinations will recognize feel a kinship to hearing Twain's descriptions, while the differences -- travel by horse drawn carriage, or on donkey back -- will...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Clivemichael Justice rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: travel, social-comment, history, kindle

Entertaining travelogue full of witty repartee's and rants, tangential asides and observations from a caustic curmudgeon. He was not impressed with Italy and the descriptions through the holy land were of a jaded bigot ..
"But in the midst of sorrow joy blooms.Even in this dark hour I had a sweet consolation.For I knew that except these Mohammedans repented they would go straight to perdition some day. And they never repent- they never forsake their paganism. This thought calmed me,cheered me, an...more

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Mar 23, 2012 Tess rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-literature, travel

This is massively entertaining, like everything else Mark Twain wrote. He's just as hilarious in non-fiction as in fiction, and you really relate to him as a traveler: being so exhausted you simply can't enjoy magnificent frescoes anymore, being embarrassed by the other American tourists on the trip (typical embarrassing American tourist behavior apparently isn't a new thing...at all), butchering the names of cities and places, calling every tour guide in every city "Ferguson" for simplicity's s...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Bruce Watson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A great summer read, literate, funny, and far reaching. In 1867, Twain joined an unlikely group of tourists for the trip of a lifetime, a steamship cruise through the Mediterranean that took them to all the major capitals of Southern Europe and the Holy Land. But Twain was already Twain, and in reporting on the trip, he could not help but mock the pomposity of the old world and the pretentiousness of the new. His fellow travelers were wags too as they called every guide Ferguson, asked innocent...more

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Feb 21, 2010 Chris Selin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

For being a non-fiction work on traveling to Europe, Africa and the Holy Lands all the way back in 1867, this book was incredibly dull. It started out interesting, but ended up being nothing but Twain crabbing about everything and digressing about unrelated moments in his life. Granted, sections of the book did have me googling locations and historical figures to gain more knowledge, so I guess the fact that I learned and revisited subjects learned in the past allows this book a few redeeming qu...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Kim added it · review of another edition

I am a Mark Twain fan, and I am also a fan of travel writers so this book was perfect for me. It was interesting to see parts of Europe and the Holy Land through Mark Twain's eyes. I have visited several of the cities he mentioned in the book and it was fascinating to hear about what he saw and the impressions he had in the 1860s compared to what I have seen and felt in my recent travels. I found the Holy Land chapters to be somewhat tedious. I don’t think he enjoyed that part of his adventure a...more

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About Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).

Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also work...more

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Books by Mark Twain

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer/Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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Trivia About The Innocents Abroad

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Quotes from The Innocents Abroad

“In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.” — 61 people liked it

“One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any significance for me before, take to themselves a meaning.” — 11 people liked it

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The Innocents Abroad

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