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The Innocents Abroad

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For the Gene Wolfe collection, see Innocents Aboard.

The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim's Progress is a travel book by American author Mark Twain.[2] Published in 1869, it humorously chronicles what Twain called his "Great Pleasure Excursion" on board the chartered steamship Quaker City (formerly USS Quaker City) through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of American travelers in 1867. The five-month voyage included numerous side trips on land.

The Innocents Abroad, or, The New Pilgrim's Progress
Innocents Abroad cover
AuthorMark Twain
LanguageEnglish
GenreTravel literature
PublisherAmerican Publishing Company
Publication date
1869[1]
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
Pages685
818.403
LC ClassPS1312.A1
Preceded byThe Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County 
Followed byRoughing It 
TextThe Innocents Abroad, or, The New Pilgrim's Progress at Wikisource

The book, which sometimes appears with the subtitle "The New Pilgrim's Progress", became the best-selling of Twain's works during his lifetime,[3] as well as one of the best-selling travel books of all time.[4]

Publication History

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Mark Twain's journey aboard the Quaker City was funded by the Alta California newspaper in exchange for fifty articles documenting his experiences. Following this arrangement, Twain also secured a contract with the American Publishing Company to produce a subscription-based book based on the same journey. The subscription book would become The Innocents Abroad. For this work, he restructured and expanded upon the letters he had originally written for the Alta California, adjusting his style by minimizing slang and vulgar language to cater to a broader, national readership. He also rewrote some of the characters and stories. The Innocents Abroad was Mark Twain's first successful publication for a national audience.[5]

Analysis

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The Innocents Abroad presents itself as an ordinary travel book based on an actual voyage in a retired Civil War ship, the USS Quaker City. The excursion was billed as a voyage to the Holy Land, with numerous stops and side trips along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, notably:

Twain reports the voyage covered over 20,000 miles of land and sea.

Twain recorded his observations and critiques of the various aspects of culture and society which he encountered on the journey, some more serious than others. Many of his observations draw a contrast between his own experiences and the often grandiose accounts in contemporary travelogues, which were regarded in their own time as indispensable aids for traveling in the region. In particular, he lampooned William Cowper Prime's Tent Life in the Holy Land for its overly sentimental prose and its often violent encounters with native inhabitants. Twain also made light of his fellow travelers and the natives of the countries and regions that he visited, as well as his own expectations and reactions.

Themes

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Illustration by True Williams: Leaning Tower

A major theme of the book is that of the conflict between history and the modern world. Twain continually encounters petty profiteering and trivializations of history as he journeys, as well as a strange emphasis placed on particular past events. He is either outraged, puzzled, or bored by each encounter. One example can be found in the sequence during which the boat has stopped at Gibraltar. On shore, the narrator hears seemingly dozens of people repeat an anecdote about how a particular hill nearby acquired its name, heedless of the fact that the anecdote is bland and pointless. Another example may be found in the discussion of the story of Abelard and Heloise, where the skeptical American deconstructs the story and comes to the conclusion that far too much fuss has been made about the two lovers. Only when the ship reaches areas of the world that do not exploit for profit or bore passers-by with inexplicable interest in their history, such as the early passage dealing with the ship's time at the Azores, is this attitude not found in the text.

This reaction to those who profit from the past is found, in an equivocal and unsure balance with reverence, in Twain's experiences in the Holy Land. The narrator reacts here, not only to the exploitation of the past and the unreasoning (to the American eye of the time) adherence to old ways, but also to the profanation of religious history. Many of his illusions are shattered, including his discovery that the nations described in the Old Testament could easily fit inside many American states and counties, and that the "kings" of those nations might very well have ruled over fewer people than could be found in some small towns. Disillusioned, he writes, "If all the poetry and nonsense that have been discharged upon the fountains and the bland scenery of this region were collected in a book, it would make a most valuable volume to burn."[6]

This equivocal reaction to the religious history the narrator encounters may be magnified by the prejudices of the time, as the United States was still primarily a Protestant nation at that point. The Catholic Church, in particular, receives a considerable amount of attention from the narrator, specifically its institutionalized nature. This is particularly apparent in the section of the book dealing with Italy, where the poverty of the lay population and the relative affluence of the church are contrasted.

Adaptations

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The PBS series Great Performances, in 1983, broadcast a television movie adaptation of The Innocents Abroad, starring Craig Wasson, David Ogden Stiers, Gigi Proietti, and Brooke Adams, directed by Luciano Salce.[7][8][9]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Facsimile of the first edition.
  2. ^ Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens) (1869). The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrim's Progress: Being Some Account of the Steamship "Quaker City's" Pleasure Excursion to Europe and the Holy Land; with Descriptions of Countries, Nations, Incidents, and Adventures, as They Appeared to the Author; with Two Hundred and Twenty-Four Illustrations. San Francisco, CA and Hartford, Conn: H. H. Bancroft and Company and American Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-64679-383-9.
  3. ^ Norcott-Mahany, Bernard (14 November 2012) "Classic Review: Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain." The Kansas City Public Library (Retrieved 27 April 2014)
  4. ^ Melton, Jeffrey Alan (2009). Mark Twain, Travel Books, and Tourism: The Tide of a Great Popular Movement. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0-8173-1350-0. Project MUSE book 6659.
  5. ^ Twain, Mark; Quirk, Tom; Cardwell, Guy (2002). The innocents abroad. Penguin classics. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-243708-7.
  6. ^ "Mark Twain in the Holy Land". The Attic. Archived from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  7. ^ "The Innocents Abroad". tcmdb. tcm.com. Archived from the original on 16 November 2023. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  8. ^ O'Connor, John J. (9 May 1983). "TV: TWAIN'S 'INNOCENTS ABROAD'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 16 November 2023. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  9. ^ "The Innocents Abroad". allocine.fr (in French). 1983. Archived from the original on 16 November 2023. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
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As a travel book, Innocents Abroad is accessible through any one of its chapters, many of which were published serially in the United States. (A compilation of the original newspaper accounts was the subject of McKeithan (1958)). In many of the chapters, a uniquely Twainian sentence or word stands out. A sampling of chapter material appears below and includes links to visual representations as well as to dedicated Mark Twain projects that have included Innocents Abroad in their sweep:

  • Ch.1 Holy Land tour flyer reprints The Quaker City travel prospectus and comments on exclusivity in passenger selection.
  • Ch.4 Ship Routine outlines the passengers' daily routines and their affectation of sailor language.
  • Ch. 8 Tangier, Morocco "We wanted something thoroughly and uncompromisingly foreign -- foreign from top to bottom -- foreign from center to circumference -- foreign inside and outside and all around -- nothing anywhere about it to dilute its foreignness -- nothing to remind us of any other people or any other land under the sun. And lo! in Tangier we have found it."
  • Ch.11 The Prado and other Marseille tourist sites. "We were troubled a little at dinner to-day, by the conduct of an American, who talked very loudly and coarsely. and laughed boisterously when all others were so quiet and well behaved. He ordered wine with a royal flourish...." Drove the Prado avenue, visited Chateau Borely, the Zoological Gardens, and the Castle d‘If. Discussed prisoner drawings created during the years Château d'If was used as a prison.
  • Ch. 12 Marseilles to Paris by Train Old Travelers; Lyon, Saône, Tonnerre, Sens, Melun, Fontainebleau "and scores of other beautiful cities"; dinner, shopping, a terrifying shave. "Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we put unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions framed in the incomprehensible jargon of their native language, and while they writhed, we impaled them, we peppered them, we scarified them, with their own vile verbs and participles."

Reviews

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Secondary references

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Mark Twain projects

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On-line snippets

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Scholarly works

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Primary sources

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