Summary
In 1895, bankrupted by his investments in the doomed Paige typesetter and by the collapse of his publishing house, sixty-year-old Mark Twain was forced to embark on a world lecture tour to raise money to pay his growing debts. Following the Equator, Twain's final travel book, was the result. His readers circumnavigate the globe with one of the world's most entertaining travel companions--to Honolulu and the Fiji Islands, Sydney and Melbourne, Tasmania, Ceylon, Bombay, Calcutta, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Twain blends whimsical anecdote, sharp-eyed commentary, and serious social critique, assailing the contempt of whites for native traditions, and noting the striking similarity between slavery and the colonial experience. In "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" and "King Leopold's Soliloquy," also included in this volume, Twain strips the imperialist powers naked and bears eloquent witness to the unspeakable crimes they perpetrate in the name of what he calls the "Blessings-of-Civilization Trust."
Mark Twain was born Samuel L. Clemens in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. He worked as a printer, and then became a steamboat pilot. He traveled throughout the West, writing humorous sketches for newspapers. In 1865, he wrote the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which was very well received. He then began a career as a humorous travel writer and lecturer, publishing The Innocents Abroad in 1869, Roughing It in 1872, and, Gilded Age in 1873, which was co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner. His best-known works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mississippi Writing: Life on the Mississippi, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910.
(Bowker Author Biography)
