Traveling with Mark Twain

My husband and I have long enjoyed the travel writing of authors like Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods, Notes From A Small Island, etc.), and we were recently surprised to learn that more than 100 years before Bryson wrote, the famous Mark Twain wrote humorous travel books of his own.

My husband and I visited Mark Twain’s Boyhood Home and Museum in Hannibal, Missouri about a week ago. In preparation, we began listening to an audiobook we had not even heard of before: The Innocents Abroad. Most of us are familiar with Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a satirical exposé of slavery, which is widely considered one of the great American novels (although often banned since its publication in 1884). But did you know that in his day, Twain was better known for the travel books he wrote? The Innocents Abroad became the bestselling of Twain’s works during his lifetime, as well as one of the bestselling travel books of all time. Published in 1869, it humorously chronicles Twain’s five-month voyage by chartered steamship through Europe and the Middle East with a group of Americans, including many side trips by land.

My husband and I have listened to most of the audiobook now and enjoyed many laugh-out-loud moments. You have to listen carefully to catch all of Twain’s dry, acerbic wit and satire. If you like humorous travel books, you might enjoy this one as well. Be forewarned, however, that it is not at all politically correct. Mark Twain’s language and his endowing of entire ethnic groups with certain negative traits is often cringe-worthy to modern ears. But like many comedians, he lampoons pretty much everyone (including himself and his fellow pilgrims), so I think he can be forgiven.

A few of Mark Twain’s travel books.

Twain went on to write six travel books—5 published during his lifetime: The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, Life on the Mississippi, A Tramp Abroad, and Following the Equator, while his Letters from Hawaii (a collection of 25 letters he wrote while a special correspondent for the Sacramento Union newspaper), were not published in book form until 1947.

Here are just a few quotes:

We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can “show off” and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can’t shake off.”

—Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

We do not get ice-cream everywhere, and so, when we do, we are apt to dissipate to excess. We never cared anything about ice-cream at home, but we look upon it with a sort of idolatry now that it is so scarce in these red-hot climates of the East.”

—Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

Did you know Mark Twain was a travel writer? Have you read any of his travel books?