Imperial Therapy: Mark Twain and the Discourse of National Consciousness in Innocents Abroad

“It may be thought that I am prejudiced. Perhaps I am. I would be ashamed of myself if I were not.” When Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910) undertook correspondence for San Francisco’s <i>Alta California</i> on a $1250 trip to Europe and the Holy Land in 1867 he had an established reputation as a humorist and was on the cusp of making the transition from journalist to author. <i>Innocents Abroad</i>, “an unvarnished tale” published in 1869 and sewn together with questionable regard for coherence or thematic consistency, sold thirty-one thousand copies in one year. Only <i>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</i> had done better, as Twain himself noted. What made his work such a success? “This book is the record of a pleasure trip” (I, xxi), Twain declared, yet there had already been innumerable pleasure trips and by more established authors than he.