In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Preface In Following the Equator, his last travel book, Mark Twain shares an anecdote about an “elderly lady and her son” who, because of a series of mishaps, have traveled well beyond their original itinerary, getting further from home all the while. “Think of it,” he writes, “a projected excursion of ¤ve hundred miles gradually enlarged, without any elaborate degree of intention, to a possible twenty-four thousand” (58). This short sketch serves as an appropriate symbol for Twain’s touring and travel-writing endeavors. In embarking on his own travel-book career with The Innocents Abroad, Twain inadvertently stepped into a world of travel writing that would carry him around the globe for the next thirty years, a beloved wandering “innocent .” Furthermore, it would allow him to become an author of unparalleled success, all “without any elaborate degree of intention” —at least in the beginning. This extended “excursion” would prove fortunate for Twain and for millions of readers who have traveled with him. To view Mark Twain as a split, often con®icted personality is a popular approach to examining the man and his literary achievement. Although it may prove distracting or even tiresome to some readers, this approach remains helpful in ongoing efforts to understand his craft. Many readers have used this premise as a springboard, citing the dualities represented by the nom de plume itself—Samuel L.Clemens versus “Mark Twain”—but readers have also recognized the identity con®icts between the genteel writer and the wild humorist, the liberal humanist and the racist, among others. I am not interested in elaborating on any of those already formidable discussions, for as Twain stated in the preface to The Innocents Abroad, “other books do that,and therefore,even if I were competent to do it,there is no need” (5). This study, more speci¤cally, considers only Mark Twain, the tourist/narrator who exists within the travel books, and makes no effort to reconcile any biographical con®icts with Samuel L. Clemens or, for that matter, Mark Twain in other literary works. The narrator who introduces himself in The Innocents Abroad and subsequently carries readers around the world until bidding farewell over thirty years later in Following the Equator is our tour guide and beloved traveling partner. My approach to Twain, however, does involve dual selves:the travel writer and the tourist. Yet these two identities depended upon one another not for establishing contrast but for complicity. Although both formed crucial parts of his literary identity, they have received relatively little notice from modern readers and critics. This travel writer/tourist Mark Twain deserves attention, and this text attempts to begin that process. Chapter 1 offers a two-part argument for this study: ¤rst, it demands recognition of travel books as central to Twain’s professional career and as worthy of study in their own right, not simply as practice work for his ¤ction; second, it proposes tourist theory as a controlling critical perspective from which to read the individual narratives. This chapter thus lays out the framework indicated by the title of this work:Mark Twain,travel books,and tourism. Chapter 2 dissects the conventions of the genre prominent in the mid–nineteenth century and illustrates Twain’s application of them in juxtaposition to his travel-writing peers. Although it may not be surprising to discover that Twain worked within as well as outside conventional demands,this is the ¤rst attempt to de¤ne those conventions and apply them to his work directly and substantively. The remaining chapters examine the ¤ve narratives individually, grouped by geographical itinerary rather than publishing chronology. Chapter 3,focusing on The Innocents Abroad and ATrampAbroad, follows Twain to the Old World, wherein he confronts the limitations of tourist experience and explores the power of imagination and self-delusion. Chapter 4, focusing on Roughing It and Life on the Mississippi, tours the New World as Twain seeks to reconcile his outsider identity as tourist with a symbolic search for home. Chapter 5 considers Following the Equator as the tourist searches for escape from an inevitable imperialistic reality. All of Twain’s ¤ve travel books are closely linked, not just by the xiv Preface author’s masterful use of the genre’s conventions, but also by his intuitive recognition and manipulation of emerging touristic sensibilities . This study considers how these in®uences converged to make Mark Twain, travel writer and tourist. All ¤ve travel books are also linked in that the four which followed...

Share