Mark Twain, The World, and Me

Winner of the Elizabeth Agee Prize in American literary studies Susan K. Harris retraced the journey of the literary icon as he made his way around the British Empire on his infamous 1895-1896 lecture tour. Part biography, part literary criticism, and part travel memoir, Harris' study offers a unique take on one of America's most widely studied writers while attempting to situate Mark Twain's social commentary within a contemporary worldview. As Harris makes her way through Australia, India, and South Africa-seeing for herself the people and places Twain experienced-she also undertakes a journey of self-exploration and what her relationship with Mark Twain means. After his disastrous investment in the Paige Compositor typesetting machine, Mark Twain found himself bankrupt. Determined to repay his debts, he undertook a thirteen-month lecture tour around the British Empire-visiting Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, India, Mauritius, and South Africa. After the tour, Twain published Following the Equator, a travelogue in which he recorded his observations and social commentary on the places he visited. Although Twain was generally known to criticize racism, bigotry, and imperialism, his financial situation meant he was willing to write to his audience's expectations in order to sell more books. This lead to the imbuement of Following the Equator with the racial and cultural biases of the era. Following the Equator went on to be a success, virtually propelling him out of debt, but now contemporary scholars and readers are left to make sense of Twain's often inconsistent observations, to figure out how to situate Twain's legacy in a new era. 'Mark Twain, the World, and Me' aims to do just that. More than 100 years after Twain's journey, Susan K. Harris follows him through Australia, India, and South America, tracing the themes and issues present in Following the Equator, addressing them head on, and using them as an occasion for comparing his era to our own. Her account covers a variety of topics, such as the conundrum that Hinduism presented to Protestant Americans of the 19th century, the clash of civilizations between Australian Aborigines and white settlers, the environmental devastation brought on by settler eradication policies, and more--