Mark Twain, travel books, and tourism : the tide of a great popular movement / Jeffrey Alan Melton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Melton, Jeffrey Alan, 1962-

Series:

Studies in American literary realism and naturalism

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910.

Twain, Mark.

Popular culture--United States--History--19th century.

Popular culture.

Tourism.

History.

Voyages and travels.

Americans--Foreign countries.

United States.

Americans--Foreign countries--History--19th century.

Americans.

Travelers' writings, American--History and criticism.

Travelers' writings, American.

Voyages and travels--History--19th century.

Travel writing--History--19th century.

Travel writing.

Tourism--History--19th century.

Physical Description:

xv, 200 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, [2002]

Summary:

In this path-breaking work, Jeffrey Melton asserts that it was no coincidence that Mark Twain made such extensive use of the travel-writing genre or that so many readers loved these narratives. Twain recognized the lucrative sales potential of travel books and capitalized on it throughout a varied and formidable career; consistently, his travel books proved to be his best-sellers. As Melton illustrates, to ensure his success, Twain had to be more than a clever author; he also had to be a clever tourist. 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. Arguing that Mark Twain stands at the beginning of the great tide of American tourism, Melton traces how Twain heralds its beginning in The Innocents Abroad and explores its various permutations in Roughing It, A Tramp Abroad, and Life on the Mississippi. With his fifth and final book, Following the Equator, Twain is forced to acknowledge the close of tourism's "innocent" first phase. The significant changes in the political and cultural power of the United States and its increasing muscularity would place the nation at the center of the global stage. Mark Twain, the travel writer and tourist, recorded this remarkable transition, and in doing so became America's lead actor for the new age. Mark Twain, Travel Books, and Tourism is the first full-length work to treat Twain's travel narratives in depth and in specific context with his contemporary travel writers and with tourism. Students and scholars of American and southern literature, Mark Twain and travelogue enthusiasts -- all will welcome this thoughtful look at the 19th-century's best-selling travel writer.

Contents:

The success of travel books and the failure of tourism

Tourism and travel writing in the nineteenth century

Touring the Old World : faith and leisure in The innocents abroad and A tramp abroad

Touring the New World : the search for home in Roughing it and Life on the Mississippi

Touring the round : imperialism and the failure of travel writing in Following the equator.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [183]-196) and index.

ISBN:

0817311602

OCLC:

48475639