This, Mark Twain's first book, is a comical treatment of his trip as a backwoods frontiersman, a "New Barbarian," to the sophisticated scenes of Europe.
One of the most famous travel books ever written about Europe and the Holy Land by an American,The Innocents Abroadis an irreverent and incisive commentary. Twain's hilarious satire is a double-edged weapon, impaling with sharp wit the chauvinist and the cosmopolitan alike. His naïve Westerner is a blustering pretender to sophistication, a too-quick convert to culture. Turning the coin, the ruins of antiquity appear but a shadow of their heralded glory; the scenery of Europe and the Holy Land dwarfs in contrast to the splendor of a Western landscape.
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