Mark Twain on the Move: A Travel Reader

Journeys, humor, and insight from Mark Twain's travel narratives - America’s literary master.

Mark Twain on the Move gathers the very best passages from all five of Mark Twain’s travel narratives: The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), A Tramp Abroad (1880), Life on the Mississippi (1883), and Following the Equator (1897). Although Twain’s travel narratives were his best sellers throughout his career, modern readers are largely unfamiliar with them. Thus, readers are not only missing some of Twain’s most hilarious and insightful material, they are also missing a complete understanding of a beloved literary and cultural icon.

Mark Twain on the Move presents the best of these works―sometimes respectful, often irreverent and outlandish―at their most lively and captures his renowned experiences as an American tourist. And they demonstrate why Twain’s greatest popularity in his lifetime derived from his travel writings rather than from his novels. Twain was always entertaining and provocative while on the move and this collection captures that fabled energy for modern readers.

Alan Gribben is Professor of English at Auburn University Montgomery, and the author of Mark Twain’s Library: A Reconstruction and numerous articles on Twain. He is a co-founder of the Mark Twain Circle of America and serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College.

Jeffrey Melton is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Alabama and the author of Mark Twain, Travel Books, and Tourism: The Tide of a Great Popular Movement.