Roughing It By Mark Twain

Roughing It follows the travels of young Mark Twain through the Wild West during the years 1861-1867. After a brief stint as a Confederate cavalry militiaman, he joined his brother Orion Clemens, who had been appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory, on a stagecoach journey west. Twain consulted his brother's diary to refresh his memory and borrowed heavily from his active imagination for many stories in the novel. Roughing It illustrates many of Twain's early adventures, including a visit to Salt Lake City, gold and silver prospecting, real-estate speculation, and his beginnings as a writer. In this memoir, readers can see examples of Twain's rough-hewn humor, which would become a staple of his writing in his later books, such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1869.

Deep in the Wild West, young Mark Twain adventures through America. He's on a journey to a faraway land. With his brother by his side, Twain treks from town to town, undertaking a variety of jobs along the way. A prequel to his first novel, ‘The Innocents Abroad’, ‘Roughing It’ is a wanderlust-filled tale of personal growth and travel. Crafted with wit and humour, the memoir transports readers on a journey back to Twain’s humble beginnings as a writer. Painting a captivating picture of 19th century America, the classic is perfect for Western lovers of Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt’s ‘The Magnificent Seven’. Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) was an American humorist, lecturer, journalist and novelist. Celebrated today as the father of American literature, his work spans epic stories of boyhood such as ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’, as well as travel narratives, such as ‘The Innocents Abroad’, ‘Roughing It’, and ‘Life on the Mississippi’. A friend to presidents, artists and royalty, he is remembered today as a popular public figure. Continuing his influence, Twain inspires Disney attractions, singer Tom Petty’s ‘Down South’ and was portrayed by Nathan Osgood in the 2018 comedy ‘Holmes and Watson’.

Grounding this study in tourist theory, Melton explores how, in five travel books, Twain captures the birth and growth of a new creature who would go on to change the map of the world: the American tourist."--BOOK JACKET.

The celebrated author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn mixes fact and fiction in a rousing travelogue that serves as "a portrait of the artist as a young adventurer."* In 1861, young Mark Twain found himself adrift as a newcomer in the Wild West, working as a civil servant, silver prospector, mill worker, and finally a reporter and traveling lecturer. Roughing It is the hilarious record of those early years traveling from Nevada to California to Hawaii, as Twain tried his luck at anything and everything--and usually failed. Twain's encounters with tarantulas and donkeys, vigilantes and volcanoes, even Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, come to life with his inimitable mixture of reporting, social satire, and rollicking tall tales.

Mark Twain's 'imaginative interpretation' of his experience as a prospector, miner, journalist in the West in Nevada, California, and the Sandwich Islands, and finally as a lecturer in 1866. It was in the West that Twain found and eventually accepted his vocation as a humorist and teller of tall tales.