Mark Twain, Travel Books, and Tourism: The Tide of a Great Popular Movement

With the publication of
The Innocents Abroad
(1869), Mark Twain embarked on a long and successful career as the 19th century’s best-selling travel writer. Jeffrey Melton treats Twain’s travel narratives in depth, and in the context of his contemporary travel writers and a burgeoning tourism culture. As Melton shows, Twain’s five major travel narratives -
The Innocents Abroad ,
Roughing It ,
Life on the Mississippi ,
A Tramp Abroad , and
Following the Equator
- demonstrate Twain’s mastery and reinvention of the genre.