Other editions of book Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

"We sai1ed for America, and there made certain preparations. This took but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a carbuncle. The dictionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is out of place in a dictionary." — Following the EquatorSo begins this classic piece of travel writing, brimming with Twain's celebrated brand of ironic, tongue-in-cheek humor. Written just before the turn of the century, the book recounts a lecture tour in which he circumnavigated the globe via steamship, including stops at the Hawaiian Islands, Australia, Fiji Islands, New Zealand, India, South Africa and elsewhere.View the world through the eyes of the celebrated author as he describes a rich range of experiences — visiting a leper colony in Hawaii, shark fishing in Australia, tiger hunting, diamond mining in South Africa, and riding the rails in India, an activity Twain enjoyed immensely as suggested by this description of a steep descent in a hand-car:"The road fell sharply down in front of us and went corkscrewing in and out around the crags and precipices, down, down, forever down, suggesting nothing so exactly or so uncomfortably as a crooked toboggan slide with no end to it. . . . I had previously had but one sensation like the shock of that departure, and that was the gaspy shock that took my breath away the first time that I was discharged from the summit of a toboggan slide. But in both instances the sensation was pleasurable — intensely so; it was a sudden and immense exaltation, a mixed ecstasy of deadly fright and unimaginable joy. I believe that this combination makes the perfection of human delight."A wealth of similarly revealing observations enhances this account, along with perceptive descriptions and discussions of people, climate, flora and fauna, indigenous cultures, religion, customs, politics, food, and many other topics. Despite its jocular tone, this book has a serious thread running through it, recording Twain's observations of the mistreatments and miseries of mankind. Enhanced by over 190 illustrations, including 173 photographs, this paperback edition — the only one avai1able — will be welcomed by all admirers of Mark Twain or classic travel books.

"We sai1ed for America, and there made certain preparations. This took but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a carbuncle. The dictionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is out of place in a dictionary." — Following the EquatorSo begins this classic piece of travel writing, brimming with Twain's celebrated brand of ironic, tongue-in-cheek humor. Written just before the turn of the century, the book recounts a lecture tour in which he circumnavigated the globe via steamship, including stops at the Hawaiian Islands, Australia, Fiji Islands, New Zealand, India, South Africa and elsewhere.View the world through the eyes of the celebrated author as he describes a rich range of experiences — visiting a leper colony in Hawaii, shark fishing in Australia, tiger hunting, diamond mining in South Africa, and riding the rails in India, an activity Twain enjoyed immensely as suggested by this description of a steep descent in a hand-car: "The road fell sharply down in front of us and went corkscrewing in and out around the crags and precipices, down, down, forever down, suggesting nothing so exactly or so uncomfortably as a crooked toboggan slide with no end to it. . . . I had previously had but one sensation like the shock of that departure, and that was the gaspy shock that took my breath away the first time that I was discharged from the summit of a toboggan slide. But in both instances the sensation was pleasurable — intensely so; it was a sudden and immense exaltation, a mixed ecstasy of deadly fright and unimaginable joy. I believe that this combination makes the perfection of human delight."A wealth of similarly revealing observations enhances this account, along with perceptive descriptions and discussions of people, climate, flora and fauna, indigenous cultures, religion, customs, politics, food, and many other topics. Despite its jocular tone, this book has a serious thread running through it, recording Twain's observations of the mistreatments and miseries of mankind. Enhanced by over 190 illustrations, including 173 photographs, this paperback edition — the only one avai1able — will be welcomed by all admirers of Mark Twain or classic travel books.

Following the Equator is the 1897 travelogue by the famous American author Mark Twain. Twain wrote the book about a tour he took of the British Empire in 1895 in order to pay for a substantial debt he owed on a failed investment of the typesetting machine. Odin’s Library Classics is dedicated to bringing the world the best of humankind’s literature from throughout the ages. Carefully selected, each work is unabridged from classic works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama.

"Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World" by Mark Twain. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

“The writer of our youth is here with his perennial charm and vigor.” —The New York TimesIn 1895, America’s most celebrated author embarked on a whirlwind round-the-world lecture tour from Paris to Vancouver, the South Seas, Australia, India, and South Africa. Traveling by steamship, train, and rickshaw, Mark Twain circled the globe delivering lectures and writing about the people and stories he encountered along the way. Though best known for his tales of life along the Mississippi River, Twain was an experienced world traveler and this book, his fifth and last travel narrative, is an evocative portrait of nineteenth-century travel and customs. Though the trip was undertaken to help Twain recover from bankruptcy, the circumstances of the journey have no impact on the author’s characteristic sense of comic timing and piercing observations; his wandering spirit and maturation as an astute observer of human nature course through every page. Entranced by India above all other destinations, Twain vividly describes the wedding of a twelve-year-old girl, a visit to the infamous prison cell “the black hole of Calcutta,” and a memorable ride on an elephant. A true classic of travel writing, Following the Equator is a delight—a chance to see the world through the eyes of America’s most unique and beloved author.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Bound on a lecturing trip around the world, Mark Twain turns his keen satiric eye to foreign lands in Following the Equator. The first of two volumes, this vivid record of a sea voyage on the Pacific Ocean displays Twain's instinctive 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, and the success of women's suffrage in New Zealand, among other topics, are the focus of his wry humor and redoubtable powers of observation. Following the Equator is an ecocative and highly unique American portrait of nineteenth-century travel and customs.

Any reader who loves a good book will relish the vicarious experience of traveling with Mark Twain, his wife, Livy, and Clara, one of their three daughters as they tour the world on the lecture circuit. It's important to understand the necessity of the trip: Twain was 60, facing bankruptcy, and signed on for the lecture tour in order to pay off his debt. The grueling schedule and unpredictable travel accommodations take no toll on his writing, however. Prepare to laugh - hard and often. Was it hot in India? "I believe that in India 'cold weather' is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy." Geography, history, culture, language, climate, language arts (oh, his choice of words and phrases!), politics, time zones, botany, geology, biology, religion - all are explored and described and relevant today. Jimmy Buffett's "Remittance Man," "That's What Living is to Me," and "Take Another Road" all spring from this book (especially the remittance man, a character you'll meet early in the book). In “Following the Equator,” readers get the opportunity to travel from Vancouver to Hawaii to Fiji to Australia to New Zealand to Ceylon to India to South Africa. The book chronicles Twain’s travels in such a way that you can pick it up and focus on one region without losing anything. But don't let that stop you from reading the whole book. See the Southern Cross and the Blue Mountains. Get rousted out of your comfortable train berth to change cars in Australia because the gauge of the tracks changes from wide to narrow. Meet the dingo and the Aboriginals, eavesdrop on Twain's conversation with "Satan" and "God" in India, explore the diamond mines of South Africa near the Trappist Monastery, and steer clear of the sharks in the Great Barrier Reef. There is more adventure in this one book than a whole year's subscription to National Geographic.

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