Around the World with Mark Twain

On July 14, 1895, Samuel Clemens, age 59 and deeply in debt, trained to Cleveland to launch a performance tour that would alleviate his financial woes and resuscitate his alter ego, Mark Twain. The journey took him to Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa. One hundred years later, Cooper (retired professor of sociology, Hebrew U., Jerusalem) followed the author's itinerary to create this book--part biography, travelogue, and social history. Twain made his way from the polluted landscapes of Montana to a vermin-infested jail in South Africa where the Boer government had imprisoned members of the Reform Committee. And then there's the mundane, Twain complaining about late trains and bad hotel accommodations, and constantly rehearsing for his performances to make them appear spontaneous. The volume seems aimed at the widest possible readership. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR