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The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It
This Library of America volume contains the novels that, when published, transformed an obscure Western journalist into a national celebrity. The Innocents Abroad and Roughing It (sometimes called The Innocents at Home) were immensely successful when first published and they remain today the most popular travel books ever written.
The Innocents Abroad (1869), based largely on letters written for New York and San Francisco papers, narrates the progress of the first American organized tour of Europe--to Naples, Smyrna, Constantinople, and Palestine. In his account Mark Twain assumes two alternate roles: at times the no-nonsense American who refuses to automatically venerate the famous sights of the Old World (preferring Lake Tahoe to Lake Como), or at times the put-upon simpleton, a gullible victim of flatterers and "frauds," and an awestruck admirer of Russian royalty.
The result is a hilarious blend of vaudevillian comedy, actual travel guide, and stinging satire, directed at both the complacency of his fellow American travelers and their reverence for European relics. Out of the book emerges the first full-dress portrait of Mark Twain himself, the breezy, shrewd, and comical manipulator of English idioms and America's mythologies about itself and its relation to the past.
Roughing It (1872) is the lighthearted account of Mark Twain's actual and imagined adventures when he escaped the Civil War and joined his brother, the recently appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory. His accounts of stagecoach travel, Native Americans, frontier society, the Mormons, the Chinese, and the codes, dress, food, and customs of the West are interspersed with his own experiences as a prospector, miner, journalist, boon companion, and lecturer as he traveled through Nevada, Utah, California, and even to the Hawaiian Islands.
Mark Twain's passage from tenderfoot to old-timer is accomplished through a long series of increasingly comical episodes. The plot is relaxed enough to accommodate some immensely funny and random character sketches, animal fables, tall tales, and dramatic monologues. The result is an enduring picture of the old Western frontier in all its original vigor and variety.
In these two works, never before brought together so compactly, Mark Twain achieves his mastery of the vernacular style.
The Innocents Abroad (1869), based largely on letters written for New York and San Francisco papers, narrates the progress of the first American organized tour of Europe--to Naples, Smyrna, Constantinople, and Palestine. In his account Mark Twain assumes two alternate roles: at times the no-nonsense American who refuses to automatically venerate the famous sights of the Old World (preferring Lake Tahoe to Lake Como), or at times the put-upon simpleton, a gullible victim of flatterers and "frauds," and an awestruck admirer of Russian royalty.
The result is a hilarious blend of vaudevillian comedy, actual travel guide, and stinging satire, directed at both the complacency of his fellow American travelers and their reverence for European relics. Out of the book emerges the first full-dress portrait of Mark Twain himself, the breezy, shrewd, and comical manipulator of English idioms and America's mythologies about itself and its relation to the past.
Roughing It (1872) is the lighthearted account of Mark Twain's actual and imagined adventures when he escaped the Civil War and joined his brother, the recently appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory. His accounts of stagecoach travel, Native Americans, frontier society, the Mormons, the Chinese, and the codes, dress, food, and customs of the West are interspersed with his own experiences as a prospector, miner, journalist, boon companion, and lecturer as he traveled through Nevada, Utah, California, and even to the Hawaiian Islands.
Mark Twain's passage from tenderfoot to old-timer is accomplished through a long series of increasingly comical episodes. The plot is relaxed enough to accommodate some immensely funny and random character sketches, animal fables, tall tales, and dramatic monologues. The result is an enduring picture of the old Western frontier in all its original vigor and variety.
In these two works, never before brought together so compactly, Mark Twain achieves his mastery of the vernacular style.
1027 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1906
22 people are currently reading
1044 people want to read
About the author
Mark Twain
8,846 books18.7k followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
June 25, 2016
Author: Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
Title: The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress
Publication Date: 1869
I own this edition but I read The Innocents Abroad as it appears in The Oxford Mark Twain collection. Why? Because it has pictures. More on that later. This edition, published by The Library of America (L.O.A.), is a quality copy, just like the rest of the series. The L.O.A. publishes handsome cloth-bound hardcovers with acid-free paper, sewn-in place-markers, etc., etc., they're quite elegant. I have a couple dozen because they look like they will stand the test of time. You see, I have this dreamy notion of someday passing down my personal library, a roomful of books, to my children--supposing they deserve it. I doubt the ingrates very much, if the future is even literate, but they're the reason I use the Library instead of wearing out the books I own. Posterity! However, I try my best to check out the same edition, same translation, binding, etc. as the one I own so that I can later reference my copy visually. I made an exception in this case.
A word about The Library of America. *** Go to http://www.loa.org/ ***. There are some introductory subscription offers that are really worth the money, if you're interested in buying fancy editions ($40 each) for dirt cheap. You can take the offer and then cancel your subscription directly before you have to pay anything substantial. Currently, there is an offer for a three-volume set of Steinbeck or Twain in vanilla slipcases under $10. Whichever set you choose, it's a steal. And that is all the free promotion I will ever write.
The L.O.A. Twain is a sleek canvas hardcover (due to its Bible-thin pages), whereas The Oxford Mark Twain is a considerably larger volume and heavy enough to stun a burglar. It took me a while to finish because I couldn't exactly lug it around anywhere. I mostly read it before bedtime. So, why The Oxford? Like I mentioned before, it has pictures; the whole book is a facsimile of the very first edition, which contained black and white cartoon sketches subtitled by Twain himself. These include portraits, comics, scenes, spoofs, vistas, and architectural designs. I have to say that these sketches are indispensable for a first reading. It's plain to see how the public fell in love with Twain via this edition. There are also distinct headers on each page of the novel which indicate the action on the page. These headers are listed in The L.O.A. edition's table of contents, but the pages themselves give only the title and chapter. But enough about editions ...
This is classic Twain. He is an endless amusement. When I first discovered how much pleasure I derived from his works, I promised myself that I would ration them out over my lifetime and not read them all at once, so that I could always have some fresh Twain. I thought The Innocents Abroad was exhausting, in the way that most travel is exhausting ... on the memory. There are a number of scenes I won't soon forget. The times I fell asleep reading it, Twain's images slipped into my nightmares. Not that he inspired them--I have nightmares more often than not--but now they featured minarets, beggars, and Bedouins.
A hungry Twain tours Europe and the Holy Land, by boat and mule respectively, and he makes fun of everyone and everything along the way, as a child might, without regard--not even for himself. By this time, he's already travelled a great deal of America and absorbed its natural wonders, so his Great American Ego is rarely impressed by what he sees in the Old World, by comparison. European lakes like Lake Como are puddles compared to Lake Tahoe, its rivers pale against the Mississippi. He calls all of his guides "Ferguson," instead of their real names or in spite of them. Similarly, when he visits Palestinian villages with names he can't pronounce, he dubs them 'Jacksonville' or after random American towns. He doesn't shy away from judging the women of any land as hideous. His fellow voyagers, mostly old professionals and ex-military, are also ridiculed by him, many becoming caricatures, some of them, parasites. On several occasions, Twain calls them out on their annoying habit of chipping away at even the most sacred monuments with their little picks and hammers, for souvenirs. There's plenty of mischief besides. Twain and friends conspire to play dumb with several foreigners, and they ask the silliest questions of every Ferguson. They point to a petrified mummy and ask if it's really dead. They sneak into the Parthenon by night, without permission to dock, steal a bunch of grapes, and get chased by a mob of villagers all the way back to the boat. Soap is a scarce amenity at every stop, even in civilized Europe. Beggars, however, are plentiful, and the relentless demand of charity (bucksheesh) is a running gag, from Algeria to Egypt. You get the filth, the stench, the poverty, the heat, the hypocrisy, nothing is spared, that's why it's exhausting in all of its bounty. He makes the most pitiful scenes oddly amusing so you don't know whether to laugh or feel sorry. Outside of Damascus, he has this to say about local health care:
Twain deliberates on bizarre topics such as the reputation of the starving dogs of Constantinople and the city's remarkable class of cripples:
Twain's historic and religious reflections are priceless for their mix of gravity/levity; he never misses an opportunity to put the Catholic Church on blast and he shows surprising compassion for Muslims. His own American folk stories are interspersed with impromptu imaginings of European life, and apocryphal versions of Biblical tales abound. There are far too many funny incidents to mention. The biggest and most sustained laugh I had was when he was describing the famine in Samaria brought about by a Syrian siege. It closes Chapter 51, for anyone that cares to look.
Perhaps I will read Roughing It next year, in which case, I'll add more.
Title: The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress
Publication Date: 1869
I own this edition but I read The Innocents Abroad as it appears in The Oxford Mark Twain collection. Why? Because it has pictures. More on that later. This edition, published by The Library of America (L.O.A.), is a quality copy, just like the rest of the series. The L.O.A. publishes handsome cloth-bound hardcovers with acid-free paper, sewn-in place-markers, etc., etc., they're quite elegant. I have a couple dozen because they look like they will stand the test of time. You see, I have this dreamy notion of someday passing down my personal library, a roomful of books, to my children--supposing they deserve it. I doubt the ingrates very much, if the future is even literate, but they're the reason I use the Library instead of wearing out the books I own. Posterity! However, I try my best to check out the same edition, same translation, binding, etc. as the one I own so that I can later reference my copy visually. I made an exception in this case.
A word about The Library of America. *** Go to http://www.loa.org/ ***. There are some introductory subscription offers that are really worth the money, if you're interested in buying fancy editions ($40 each) for dirt cheap. You can take the offer and then cancel your subscription directly before you have to pay anything substantial. Currently, there is an offer for a three-volume set of Steinbeck or Twain in vanilla slipcases under $10. Whichever set you choose, it's a steal. And that is all the free promotion I will ever write.
The L.O.A. Twain is a sleek canvas hardcover (due to its Bible-thin pages), whereas The Oxford Mark Twain is a considerably larger volume and heavy enough to stun a burglar. It took me a while to finish because I couldn't exactly lug it around anywhere. I mostly read it before bedtime. So, why The Oxford? Like I mentioned before, it has pictures; the whole book is a facsimile of the very first edition, which contained black and white cartoon sketches subtitled by Twain himself. These include portraits, comics, scenes, spoofs, vistas, and architectural designs. I have to say that these sketches are indispensable for a first reading. It's plain to see how the public fell in love with Twain via this edition. There are also distinct headers on each page of the novel which indicate the action on the page. These headers are listed in The L.O.A. edition's table of contents, but the pages themselves give only the title and chapter. But enough about editions ...
This is classic Twain. He is an endless amusement. When I first discovered how much pleasure I derived from his works, I promised myself that I would ration them out over my lifetime and not read them all at once, so that I could always have some fresh Twain. I thought The Innocents Abroad was exhausting, in the way that most travel is exhausting ... on the memory. There are a number of scenes I won't soon forget. The times I fell asleep reading it, Twain's images slipped into my nightmares. Not that he inspired them--I have nightmares more often than not--but now they featured minarets, beggars, and Bedouins.
A hungry Twain tours Europe and the Holy Land, by boat and mule respectively, and he makes fun of everyone and everything along the way, as a child might, without regard--not even for himself. By this time, he's already travelled a great deal of America and absorbed its natural wonders, so his Great American Ego is rarely impressed by what he sees in the Old World, by comparison. European lakes like Lake Como are puddles compared to Lake Tahoe, its rivers pale against the Mississippi. He calls all of his guides "Ferguson," instead of their real names or in spite of them. Similarly, when he visits Palestinian villages with names he can't pronounce, he dubs them 'Jacksonville' or after random American towns. He doesn't shy away from judging the women of any land as hideous. His fellow voyagers, mostly old professionals and ex-military, are also ridiculed by him, many becoming caricatures, some of them, parasites. On several occasions, Twain calls them out on their annoying habit of chipping away at even the most sacred monuments with their little picks and hammers, for souvenirs. There's plenty of mischief besides. Twain and friends conspire to play dumb with several foreigners, and they ask the silliest questions of every Ferguson. They point to a petrified mummy and ask if it's really dead. They sneak into the Parthenon by night, without permission to dock, steal a bunch of grapes, and get chased by a mob of villagers all the way back to the boat. Soap is a scarce amenity at every stop, even in civilized Europe. Beggars, however, are plentiful, and the relentless demand of charity (bucksheesh) is a running gag, from Algeria to Egypt. You get the filth, the stench, the poverty, the heat, the hypocrisy, nothing is spared, that's why it's exhausting in all of its bounty. He makes the most pitiful scenes oddly amusing so you don't know whether to laugh or feel sorry. Outside of Damascus, he has this to say about local health care:
"The little children were in a pitiable condition -- they all had sore eyes, and were otherwise afflicted in various ways. They say that hardly a native child in all the East is free from sore eyes, and that thousands of them go blind of one eye or both every year. I think this must be so, for I see plenty of blind people every day, and I do not remember seeing any children that hadn't sore eyes. And, would you suppose that an American mother could sit for an hour, with her child in her arms, and let a hundred flies roost upon its eyes all that time undisturbed? I see that every day. It makes my flesh creep. Yesterday we met a woman riding on a little jackass, and she had a little child in her arms -- honestly, I thought the child had goggles on as we approached, and I wondered how its mother could afford so much style. But when we drew near, we saw that the goggles were nothing but a camp meeting of flies assembled around each of the child's eyes, and at the same time there was a detachment prospecting its nose. The flies were happy, the child was contented, and so the mother did not interfere." (Chapter 45)
Twain deliberates on bizarre topics such as the reputation of the starving dogs of Constantinople and the city's remarkable class of cripples:
"A beggar in Naples who can show a foot which has all run into one horrible toe, with one shapeless nail on it, has a fortune--but such an exhibition as that would not provoke any notice in Constantinople. The man would starve. Who would pay any attention to attractions like his among the rare monsters that throng the bridges of the Golden Horn and display their deformities in the gutters of Stamboul? O, wretched impostor! How could he stand against the three-legged woman, and the man with his eye in his cheek? How would he blush in presence of the man with fingers on his elbow? Where would he hide himself when the dwarf with seven fingers on each hand, no upper lip, and his under-jaw gone, came down in his majesty? Bismillah! The cripples of Europe are a delusion and a fraud. The truly gifted flourish only in the by-ways of Pera and Stamboul." (Chapter 33)
Twain's historic and religious reflections are priceless for their mix of gravity/levity; he never misses an opportunity to put the Catholic Church on blast and he shows surprising compassion for Muslims. His own American folk stories are interspersed with impromptu imaginings of European life, and apocryphal versions of Biblical tales abound. There are far too many funny incidents to mention. The biggest and most sustained laugh I had was when he was describing the famine in Samaria brought about by a Syrian siege. It closes Chapter 51, for anyone that cares to look.
Perhaps I will read Roughing It next year, in which case, I'll add more.
June 11, 2012
If Huckleberry Finn is the father of Modern Literature (thanks Mr. Hemingway), then The Innocents Abroad/Roughing Itmust be the father of all modern humor (and certainly humorous travelogues). If Mark Twain were alive today, he'd certainly be writing for The New Yorker or 30 Rock or at the very least be a panelist on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me (although I'd like to think he'd have his show, a la Garrison Keillor). Innocents isn't my favorite Twain - I'm more partial to his fiction - but it's still biting and sarcastic, with an interesting portrait of how things were in 1860s Europe and the Middle East. Twain and his fellow shipmate buddies must have been quite a crew to travel with.
February 4, 2015
[This review is just forThe Innocents Abroad, not for Roughing It which was also in the volume.]
Unlike Twain's other works that I have read, this seemed very dated. It began very dry, for the first two hundred or so pages; perhaps because I know many Moslems and Jews (to say nothing of Europeans) they do not seem "exotic" to me, which the interest of this section was based on.
After the pilgrims reach Rome, and even more in the "Holy Land", the book becomes more humorous, mainly at the expense of the Catholic Church and its relics, and there are a few passages that dimly foreshadow the author of the diaries of Adam and Eve, but for the most part nothing that would shock a Protestant audience.
It's not entirely clear today when Twain is seriously making fun of the Moslems et al. and when he is satirizing the ignorant attitudes of the Americans, so the book in its original context may have been funnier or less so than it seems now.
If you are interested academically in Twain's development as a writer, or in American attitudes toward foreigners in the post-Civil War period, this may be an important book to read; but if you're looking for Twain's humor, it is probably not one that should be high on your list.
Unlike Twain's other works that I have read, this seemed very dated. It began very dry, for the first two hundred or so pages; perhaps because I know many Moslems and Jews (to say nothing of Europeans) they do not seem "exotic" to me, which the interest of this section was based on.
After the pilgrims reach Rome, and even more in the "Holy Land", the book becomes more humorous, mainly at the expense of the Catholic Church and its relics, and there are a few passages that dimly foreshadow the author of the diaries of Adam and Eve, but for the most part nothing that would shock a Protestant audience.
It's not entirely clear today when Twain is seriously making fun of the Moslems et al. and when he is satirizing the ignorant attitudes of the Americans, so the book in its original context may have been funnier or less so than it seems now.
If you are interested academically in Twain's development as a writer, or in American attitudes toward foreigners in the post-Civil War period, this may be an important book to read; but if you're looking for Twain's humor, it is probably not one that should be high on your list.
July 9, 2020
According to the notes, Innocents Abroad was Twain's bestseller during his lifetime. I could perceive the wit and sarcasm, but somehow I could not appreciate it. It is verbose and slowed my reading rate significantly. I felt like I was reading a foreign language. I abandoned it for the second book in the volume: Roughing It. As it turned out, I fared no better with this account of the American West. The descriptions of the people were lively and vibrant, but I found the racism and sexism impossible to rise above.
never-finished
December 12, 2010I keep slogging through this book. I thought I liked Mark Twain. Maybe I only like liking Mark Twain. I finish it someday, but the library'll want it back before I get there this time. If nothing else, I know I like this quote of his- "I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them."
June 9, 2012
I have to say that I enjoyed Twain's "sketches" of people and his political commentary in his autobiography much more than I enjoyed Innocents Abroad. I didn't read Roughing It -- should I?
September 22, 2014
Don't know whether to put this book in fiction or not. Some of it seems like fiction. Definitely satire. The text seemed to drag on in places. (My kobo crapped out and I gave it up for a long time before I finally returned to finish this pair of books)
Want to read
December 29, 2008recommended by Terry Pratchett.
Read
January 9, 2009Mark Twain : The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It (Library of America) by Mark Twain (1984)
December 22, 2010
Mark Twain gets a little snarky. But it is entertaining at times.
October 8, 2011
Mark Twain is great fun and this book is full of wonderful anecdotes and hilarious discussions.
August 31, 2011
The Old World seen through the New World's eyes (I previously read Roughing It separately), i.e., stripped of sentimentality and superstition.
April 12, 2013
Nothing better - biting satire, transcendent humor; all by the Master.
March 29, 2013
Roughing It is the better written of the two, but both are riotous accounts of travel. The Innocents Abroad should be required reading before anyone travels to Europe.
December 16, 2014
This book is amazing. I can't believe it took me 60 years to discover Twain's non fiction. If you like travel or history, read this.
May 17, 2015
ROUGHING IT: I rate this book 4 of 5 -- EXCELLENT. It's pretty funny.
January 22, 2016
A timeless read for anyone traveling to Europe or the Middle East.
July 5, 2016
Roughing It - finished 07.04.16
Innocents Abroad - finished (earlier)
Innocents Abroad - finished (earlier)
December 28, 2016
First read-through from 09-Dec to 28-Dec-2016.
March 29, 2017
Great read. Read a couple of years ago.
January 8, 2022
Please see my reviews of the two individual books contained in this volume.
November 5, 2017
An outstanding read! The wit of Mark Twain meshes with his picturesque prose in this historical novel, America's 1st expedition across the pond. A reader will be captured by this entertaining, educational and prolific volume of overseas travel and America's far west. Find out who Ferguson is, was and the valuable detail of the Pony Express, just a few that will enlighten any reader along the way. There is so much more to tell, so be a good American and read one of our best writers explicit details that will warm the heart, bring a smile to your face and a chuckle now and then. More importantly, one may learn something about America, it's travels, people and worldly sights.
June 26, 2022
The hardest part about this book was the archaic language. Once you get used to how people talked and wrote in the late 1800s and what they meant, it’s an easier read. It was a slow read, however, because I often had to read a sentence (or few sentences) several times to grasp the meaning.
I found Innocents Abroad to be harder to read, and it got monotonous. It was hard to tell when he was being serious as opposed to sarcasm. Also, it seemed to be the same story at each new location. I preferred Roughing It even though it was still sometimes hard to differentiate between serious and facetious.
Overall, I’m glad I read both.
I found Innocents Abroad to be harder to read, and it got monotonous. It was hard to tell when he was being serious as opposed to sarcasm. Also, it seemed to be the same story at each new location. I preferred Roughing It even though it was still sometimes hard to differentiate between serious and facetious.
Overall, I’m glad I read both.
August 13, 2025
Interesting to hear about places in the world that I have been and what they were like over 100 years ago when Mark Twain visited them. His writing of course is so clever and his ideas of other cultures and peoples are insightful.
January 23, 2019
Twain's travel writing, as showcased in these two novels, is fantastic, full of black, sarcastic humor in addition to descriptions of the world and country that no longer exist today.
Read
February 8, 2021The writing is exquisite. The author is supremely racist. (Yes, yes, I know some of it was "tongue in cheek", and he was a man "of the time", but still I offer a heads up.)
February 19, 2025
The Innocents Abroad
Europe.
All you gotta know.
In fact, read this and don't bother going.
Save Big $$$.
Europe.
All you gotta know.
In fact, read this and don't bother going.
Save Big $$$.
October 10, 2024
Cover to cover joy. Thanks to Library of America and thanks to the editor, Guy Cardwell, and to everyone who made this possible.
May 2, 2017
humorous and truthful...
June 14, 2017
Another historical/psychological gem.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews