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| The Innocents Abroad (Dover Value Editions) | 
 enlarge | Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Dover Publications
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $7.67
You Save: $5.28 (41%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $7.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  (8 reviews)
Sales Rank: 69485
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 652
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1.5
ISBN: 048642832X
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.403
EAN: 9780486428321
ASIN: 048642832X
Publication Date: August 11, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The Innocents Abroad sold over 70,000 copies in its first year and remained the best-selling of Twain's works throughout his lifetime. This classic records Twain's keen wit and amusing observations during his trip throughEurope and the Holy Land in 1867. Edition also includes all of original work's charming illustrations. 234 black-and-white illustrations
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 What if Israel did not exist? August 31, 2008
I had heard that Mark Twain travelled around and wrote about the Middle east. Today some ask the question: "What if Israel did not exist?" The answer is right there by someone Americans can trust. Mark Twain says it all in the Innocents Abroad." That is what the whole Middle east would be if Israel did not exist.
 A meandering tale of 19th-century travel May 29, 2008
This book is NOT an easy read, but it does have its rewards.
"The Innocents Abroad" is a long and meandering travelogue recounting Twain's 1867 trip to Europe and the Middle East aboard a chartered steamship of American tourists. Twain is observant, droll and amusing, but he also bogs the narrative down with numerous tedious tangents and obscure literary and bibilical references.
It is interesting to see the world of 1867 through Twain's eyes and to find that many of the annoyances of travel then are familiar today -- pushy vendors, long-winded guides, aggressive beggars. But it's also fascinating to see what's different -- the difficulty of finding soap in Europe, for example, or the need to travel partly by carriage, horse and donkey.
A couple of scenes were especially enjoyable. In Greece, the Americans were forbidden to land. Desperate to see the Parthenon and the Acropolis, Twain and others snuck off the ship in the middle of night, crept through city streets and then bribed guards to see the landmarks. Later, at Yalta on the Black Sea, the travelers remarkably got to meet the emperor of Russia simply because they were Americans, and were treated as grand representatives of their country.
While Twain makes it clear that he is a Bible-reading man, he despises those who are excessively pious or who use religion arrogantly. Italy, he says, has built magnificent churches while "starving half her citizens to accomplish it. She is today one vast museum of magnificance and misery." In the Middle East, he mocks those who operate questionably "holy" sites to lure in tourists.
It is hard to imagine any travel writer as blunt as Twain. He describes the Azores as "eminently Portuguese -- that is to say, it is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy." He says Moorish women have "atrocious ugliness."
The most disturbing element of the book is Twain's bigotry toward Muslims. He calls the Muslim turks "by nature and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, superstitious." He calls the residents of Damascus the "ugliest, wickedest-looking villains we have seen." He unapologetically says Muslims will never be the equal of Christians until they learn to repent.
This is a long book (my edition was 495 pages of rather dense type), but I found you don't have to read it straight through. Since there are few continuing characters, you can put it down and pick up later with little loss. To avoid getting bogged down, I suggest you skip over Twain's numerous digressions and instead skip ahead to the parts where he is actually traveling or personally engaged in an activitiy.
 Arrogance Revisited October 16, 2007
1 out of 10 found this review helpful
The book is nothing more than the arrogance of American pilgrims or travelers looking and sounding superior to "foreigners." I could not get through it and I don't regret it.
Innocents (not innocence) Abroad June 25, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It was with delight that I picked up Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. Above all other other authors, it was probably Twain that directed me towards my degree (minor though it is) in English. I also love to travel and see new cultures and places. Because of this I couldn't have imagined a better author than Twain to accompany on a romp through Europe and the Middle East. The first couple of pages alone were entertaining, so I plunged into it with excitement. What I found is that not even Mark Twain can avoid the eventual tediousness that comes with travel memoirs, someone rattling on and on about this place or that place, the art they saw or the cities which are apparently unique but all seem the same. However, if there is anyone you would rather be with throughout all that monotony, it is the master of satire himself. Every time I thought I was descending into the point of no return boredom, Twain threw out some anectdote or image or some completely irrelevent story that made me laugh out loud. Several times I laughed pretty hard, other times I simply smiled, but no matter what, Twain rescued me from not wanting to finish the tour. Some of my favorite moments were the constant naming of all guides as "Ferguson," no matter what their actual name or nationality, the never-ending quest for a good shave from foreign barbers, or reflections on the random, non-sensical thoughts of the passenger nicknamed "the Oracle." By the end, I was interested not only to see parts of Europe, but from the point of view of a very fresh, post-Civil War American. Twain's encounter with the Russian Czar is almost too good to be true, and his insights in the Holy Land are both funny and thoughtful. Something that I had never noticed in his previous writings, either because of my own negligence or his careful writing, was the power of Twain's description. It is with the most passing ease that he masterfully paints a picture of what he is seeing. My brother tells me that Mr. Twain also wrote a travel narrative on a trip around the equator. Europe was fun enough that I don't see a reason to not join him all the way around the world. I'll keep you posted.
Twain's Post Civil War Tourism in Europe and the Middle East April 1, 2006
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
As the United States was recovering from the devastating effects of the Civil War, a group of "pilgrims" (as Twain calls them) boarded a steamer for an extended five month picnic to Europe and the Holy Land. His passage was paid, about $1250, by a newspaper in California in return for a series of what turned out to be 50 letters documenting this tourist experience. In the process, he got a lot of mileage out of caricaturizing his inner circle amongst the some 65 pilgrims, making them famous...and the book made from the letters made him famous.
Although his humor and irony is not as concentrated as that in "Huckleberry Finn" and later books, the suggestion of great literature is present. "Innocents" is rampant with characteristic understatement. In a day before political correctness, he notes, "The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant...in Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language."
In Tiberius, he noted that the women wore their coins of dowry on their headdresses: "Most of these maidens were not wealthy, but some have been kindly dealt with by fortune. I saw heiresses there, worth, in their own right, - worth, well, I suppose I might venture to say as much as nine dollars and a half. But such cases are rare. When you come across one of these, she naturally puts on airs."
He does not sugar-coat his view of the middle east and holy land - a thinly populated barren wasteland whose religion handicapped them then as now. During a trip to Jordan over roads supposedly subject to raids by roving Bedouins, he wrote, "I think we must all have determined upon the same line of tactics, for it did seem as if we never would get to Jerico. I had a notoriously slow horse; but somehow I could not keep him in the rear to save my neck. He was forever turning up in the lead. In such cases I trembled a little, and got down to fix my saddle. But it was not of any use. The others all got down to fix their saddles, too. I never saw such a time with saddles. It was the first time any of them had got out of order in three weeks, and now they had all broken down at once. I tried walking for exercise - I had not had enough in Jerusalem, searching for holy places. But it was a failure. The whole mob were suffering for exercise, and it was not fifteen minutes till they were all on foot, and I had the lead again...We were moping along down through this dreadful place, every man in the rear. Our guards, two gorgeous young Arab sheiks, with cargoes of swords, guns, pistols, and daggers on board, were loafing ahead. 'Bedouins!' Every man shrunk up and disappeared in his clothes like a mud-turtle. My first impulse was to dash forward and destroy the Bedouins. My second was to dash to the rear to see if there were any coming in that direction. I acted on the latter impulse. So did all the others. If any Bedouins had approached us then from that point of the compass, they would have paid dearly for their rashness."
Delightful in every respect, this is still a chronicle of travel, and readers who have experienced any of the myriad of locations will be more consistently entertained. Astute readers may observe evidence of the history and experiences gained on this trip used frequently in Twain's subsequent writings.
His more acclaimed "Roughing It" is a duplication of his travelogue efforts, but in the more familiar United States. Interesting (in "Innocents") is his positive view of stage coach travel in the US in comparison to train travel by steam engine in Europe. Can you imagine in today's world enjoying a thousand-mile trip over rut-filled excuses for roads behind a team of horses?
Anyway, this is a great intro to the early Mark Twain - Five well-deserved stars!
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