This award, approved by the Queen, is the highest award attainable for a traveller, and Theroux joins the ranks of recipients including Sir Edmund Hillary, Admiral Richard Byrd and Dr Thor Heyerdahl. In 2015, he was awarded a Royal Medal from the Royal Geographical Society for ‘the encouragement of geographical discovery through travel writing’. Paul Theroux is an American novelist and travel writer (‘The world’s most perceptive travel writer’ Daily Mail) who is the author of many highly acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Great Railway Bazaar (1975 Folio 2013), The Old Patagonian Express (1979 Folio 2023), The Mosquito Coast (1981) Riding the Iron Rooster (1983), and Mr Bones: Twenty Stories (2014).
For the newly commissioned introduction, celebrated travel writer Paul Theroux shares his admiration for Twain, particularly his desire to look beyond clichéd experiences and portray the gritty realism of epic travel. But above all, there are Twain’s mesmerising descriptions of both the overarching beauty of the Old World and its pockets of desperate poverty.Īward-winning illustrator James Albon has captured the eccentricities of the travellers and the myriad locations in a set of stylish colour and black-and-white lino-cuts that echo Twain’s sardonic and eagle-eyed prose, while the striking map endpapers chart the highlights of this fascinating voyage. There are attempts to speak French to the French fear at the hands of demon barbers overzealous tour guides and large doses of religious fervour. From Tangier to Versailles, Odessa, the Dead Sea and the Pyramids of Egypt, Twain’s acerbic reporting leaves no person or place off-limits. When the fledgling journalist boarded the steamship Quaker City in 1867, it was the dawn of the age of tourism, and his acutely observed and humorous account of the five-month grand tour of Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land captivated readers … as it still does today.
Largely remembered for his novels, Mark Twain achieved his greatest literary success within his lifetime with The Innocents Abroad.
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