The Innocents Abroad

Twain’s best-selling travel book chronicles a steamship tour of Europe and the Holy Land, sending up both the pomposities of the Old World and the naivety of American tourists, himself included. He punctures the reverent guidebook cliches pilgrims were expected to feel before famous ruins and relics, preferring honest, irreverent observation. The comic persona he perfected here, the plain-speaking American skeptic abroad, made him a national celebrity and reshaped travel writing.