“When Mark Twain took off by ship for a round-the-world lecture tour, he took along a sharp eye, a notebook, and his renowned wit. Michael Kevin reads Twain’s narrative of his experiences with a Southern-inflected drawl and an unhurried pace that sound just right. He also offers amusing individual character shadings for many of Twain’s fellow passengers, whom the great writer often quotes as well as skewers. The book is full of everything from onboard whist games to tiger hunting. Twain’s opinions are many, often mercilessly funny, and frequently ahead of their time—except when he is suddenly of his time. The result is a fully developed self-portrait, nineteenth-century mores and all.” AudioFile
Description
Bound on a lecture trip around the world, Mark Twain turns his keen satiric eye to foreign lands in Following the Equator. This vivid chronicle of a sea voyage on the Pacific Ocean displays Twain’s eye for the unusual, his wide-ranging curiosity, and his delight in embellishing the facts. The personalities of the ship’s crew and passengers, the poetry of Australian place names, the success of women’s suffrage in New Zealand, an account of the Sepoy Mutiny, and reflections on the Boer War as an expression of imperialistic morality, among other topics, are the focus of his wry humor and redoubtable powers of observation. Following the Equator is an evocative and highly unique American portrait of nineteenth-century travel and customs.
Praise
“When Mark Twain took off by ship for a round-the-world lecture tour, he took along a sharp eye, a notebook, and his renowned wit. Michael Kevin reads Twain’s narrative of his experiences with a Southern-inflected drawl and an unhurried pace that sound just right. He also offers amusing individual character shadings for many of Twain’s fellow passengers, whom the great writer often quotes as well as skewers. The book is full of everything from onboard whist games to tiger hunting. Twain’s opinions are many, often mercilessly funny, and frequently ahead of their time—except when he is suddenly of his time. The result is a fully developed self-portrait, nineteenth-century mores and all.” AudioFile
“An early indictment of imperialist racism that deserves rediscovery.” Guardian (London)
“Mark Twain’s Following the Equator is one of the best of his books…Lively and interesting.” Catholic World, 1898
Details
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Release Day | Dec 31, 2005 |
| Release Date | January 1, 2006 |
| Release Date Machine | 1136073600 |
| Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
| Provider | Craig Black |
| Categories | Arts & Entertainment, Travel & Tourism, Travel Writing & Commentary, Architecture, Nonfiction - Adult, Nonfiction - All |
Author Bio
Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel L. Clemens (1835–1910), was born in Florida, Missouri, and grew up in Hannibal on the west bank of the Mississippi River. He attended school briefly and then at age thirteen became a full-time apprentice to a local printer. When his older brother Orion established the Hannibal Journal, Samuel became a compositor for that paper and then, for a time, an itinerant printer. With a commission to write comic travel letters, he traveled down the Mississippi. Smitten with the riverboat life, he signed on as an apprentice to a steamboat pilot. After 1859, he became a licensed pilot, but two years later the Civil War put an end to the steam-boat traffic.
In 1861, he and his brother traveled to the Nevada Territory where Samuel became a writer for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, and there, on February 3, 1863, he signed a humorous account with the pseudonym Mark Twain. The name was a river man’s term for water “two fathoms deep” and thus just barely safe for navigation.
In 1870 Twain married and moved with his wife to Hartford, Connecticut. He became a highly successful lecturer in the United States and England, and he continued to write.
Narrator Bio
Overview
Bound on a lecture trip around the world, Mark Twain turns his keen satiric eye to foreign lands in Following the Equator. This vivid chronicle of a sea voyage on the Pacific Ocean displays Twain’s eye for the unusual, his wide-ranging curiosity, and his delight in embellishing the facts. The personalities of the ship’s crew and passengers, the poetry of Australian place names, the success of women’s suffrage in New Zealand, an account of the Sepoy Mutiny, and reflections on the Boer War as an expression of imperialistic morality, among other topics, are the focus of his wry humor and redoubtable powers of observation. Following the Equator is an evocative and highly unique American portrait of nineteenth-century travel and customs.
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