Following the Equator
Following the Equator cover
|Publisher||American Publishing Company|
|Preceded by||Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc|
|Followed by||A Dog's Tale|
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.
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.
- Twain, Mark (1897). Following the Equator - A journey around the world. American Publishing Co., Hartford.
|Wikiquote has quotations related to: Following the Equator|
- Twain's Notes, Mock-up of Title Page, Dedication of Following the Equator Shapell Manuscript Foundation
- Olivia Langdon Clemens to Publisher Walter Bliss on Success of Following the Equator
- Following the Equator at Project Gutenberg
- Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World read by John Greenman at LibriVox (free downloadable .mp3 and .ogg audio files).
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