7.8 /10 1 Votes7.8
Country United States Publication date 1897 Pages 718 Originally published 1897 Page count 718 Publisher Sun-Times Media Group | 3.9/5 Goodreads Language English Media type Print | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Following the Equator (sometimes titled More Tramps Abroad) is a non-fiction travelogue published by American author Mark Twain in 1897.
Twain was practically bankrupt in 1894 due to a failed investment into a "revolutionary" typesetting machine. In an attempt to extricate himself from debt of $100,000 (equivalent of about $2.5 million in 2010) he undertook a tour of the British Empire in 1895, a route chosen to provide numerous opportunities for lectures in English.
Themes
The book is an account of Twain's travel published in 1897. It is a social commentary, critical of racism towards Blacks, Asians, and Indigenous groups; oppressive imperialism in the British Empire; and religious intolerance through missionary efforts.
Twain included a number of fictional stories in the body of what is otherwise a non-fiction work. In particular, the story of how Cecil Rhodes made his fortune by finding a newspaper in the belly of a shark, and the story of how a man named Ed Jackson made good in life out of a fake letter of introduction to Cornelius Vanderbilt, were anthologized in Charles Neider (ed) The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain, (Doubleday, 1957) where they are presented as fiction.