‘The Innocents Abroad’ is a humorous travel narrative by Mark Twain based on his 1867 steamship voyage to Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land. He published newspaper articles about the people and places he saw. In 1869, he collected these articles and other notes and published them as ‘The Innocents Abroad’. Not only was it Twain’s best-selling book in his lifetime, it has proven to be one of the most enduring travelogues ever written.
While some earlier travelogues focused on depicting sites like Jerusalem and the Egyptian Pyramids in grandiose, almost mythological terms, Twain’s writing is much more realistic and gives honest accounts of what he saw. He’s not afraid to burst readers bubbles and give them a taste of the disappointment and frustration he sometimes experienced.