The Innocents Abroad

Zusatztext “A classic work . . . [that] marks a critical point in the development of our literature.”—Leslie A. Fiedler Informationen zum Autor Mark Twain (1835-1910), fæddur Samuel Langhorne Clemens, var bandarískur rithöfundur, húmoristi og fyrirlesari þekktur fyrir gáfur sínar og lifandi lýsingu á bandarísku lífi á 19. öld. Hann er almennt talinn einn merkasti bandaríski rithöfundurinn. Verk Twain kanna oft þemu um kynþátt, samfélag og siðferði. Meðal frægustu skáldsagna hans eru Ævintýri Tom Sawyer og Ævintýri Huckleberry Finns, sem þykja meistaraverk bandarískra bókmennta. Klappentext The Innocents Abroad is one of the most prominent and influential travel books ever written about Europe and the Holy Land. In it! the collision of the American "New Barbarians” and the European "Old World” provides much comic fodder for Mark Twain—and a remarkably perceptive lens on the human condition. Gleefully skewering the ethos of American tourism in Europe! Twain's lively satire ultimately reveals just what it is that defines cultural identity. As Twain himself points out! "Broad! wholesome! charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” And Jane Jacobs observes in her Introduction! "If the reader is American! he may also find himself on a tour of his own psyche.” Chapter 1 For months the great Pleasure Excursion to Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers every where in America, and discussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the way of Excursions—its like had not been thought of before, and it compelled that interest which attractive novelties always command. It was to be a picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, instead of freighting an ungainly steam ferry-boat with youth and beauty and pies and doughnuts, and paddling up some obscure creek to disembark upon a grassy lawn and wear themselves out with a long summer day’s laborious frolicking under the impression that it was fun, were to sail away in a great steamship with flags flying and cannon pealing, and take a royal holiday beyond the broad ocean, in many a strange clime and in many a land renowned in history! They were to sail for months over the breezy Atlantic and the sunny Mediterranean; they were to scamper about the decks by day, filling the ship with shouts and laughter—or read novels and poetry in the shade of the smoke-stacks, or watch for the jelly-fish and the nautilus, over the side, and the shark, the whale, and other strange monsters of the deep; and at night they were to dance in the open air, on the upper deck, in the midst of a ball-room that stretched from horizon to horizon, and was domed by the bending heavens and lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars and the magnificent moon—dance, and promenade, and smoke, and sing, and make love, and search the skies for constellations that never associate with the “Big Dipper” they were so tired of; and they were to see the ships of twenty navies—the customs and costumes of twenty curious peoples—the great cities of half a world—they were to hob-nob with nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and princes, Grand Moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires! It was a brave conception; it was the offspring of a most ingenious brain. It was well advertised, but it hardly needed it: the bold originality, the extraordinary character, the seductive nature, and the vastness of the enterprise provoked comment every where and advertised it in every household in the land. Who could read the programme of the excursion without longing to make one of the party? I will insert it here. It is almost as good as a map. As a text for this book, nothing could be better: EXCURSION TO THE HOLY LAND, EGYPT, THE CRIMEA, GREECE, AND INTERMEDIATE POINTS OF INTEREST. Brooklyn, February 1st, 1867. The undersigned will make an excursion a...

Product details

• Authors: Mark Twain
• Publisher: Modern Library PRH US
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 11.02.2003
• EAN: 9780812967050
• ISBN: 978-0-8129-6705-0
• No. of pages: 560
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 203 mm x 30 mm
• Series: MODERN LIBRARY; MODERN LIBRARY
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Travel > Travelogues, traveller's tales > Europe