The Innocents Abroad

Mark Twains humorous trip narrative The Innocents Abroad often known as The New Pilgrims Progress was first released in 1869. The letters Twain wrote to newspapers about his 1867 steamship voyage across Europe Egypt and the Holy Land serve as the basis for this story. The Innocents Abroad is a biting parody of tourists who research what to see and do by reading travel books. While portraying a sharp-eyed crafty Westerner Twain was refreshingly honest and vivid in describing foreign scenes and his reactions to them. He juxtaposed serious paragraphs with foolish ones comparing and contrasting facts numbers descriptions reasons and arguments. The humor itself is varied; at times it is written in the manner of the Southwestern yarn spinners he had encountered when he was younger and at other times it is written in the manner of modern humorists like Artemus Ward and Josh Billings who primarily used burlesque parody and other linguistic devices. The innocents Abroad a work of humor by Mark Twain maybe the best travelog ever written.