The Quint Essential Blog
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Did Mark Twain meet the Czar?
One of the famous stories Mark Twain writes about in The Innocents Abroad is the meeting of Twain and his fellow excursionists with Czar Alexander II. Is it possible that Twain, who wrote about the event in newspaper accounts, and in his book, didn’t actually make it to the meeting with the Czar? Twain writes…
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Mark Twain’s Quaker City Letters
Mark Twain’s book The Innocents Abroad was based on his trip on the Quaker City side-paddle steamship. Twain’s ticket was paid for by the Daily Alta California newspaper in San Francisco, which paid the $1250 ticket price (roughly $25,000 in today’s dollars) in exchange for 50 letters during the journey which would be published in…
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Can you trust a transcription?
While Mark Twain’s book The Innocents Abroad is the most famous record of the tourist cruise in 1867 on the Quaker City paddle steamer, it wasn’t the only one. Many passengers on the ship, like Twain, corresponded with newspapers across the United States. One other passenger, Mrs. Louisa Griswold, also published a book of the…
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Finding a book that doesn’t exist
Mark Twain, in The Innocents Abroad, refers to a book twice in the text. In Chapter 48, he quotes from book saying: “C.W.E.,” (of “Life in the Holy Land”), deposes as follows: and then quotes a passage from the book. In Chapter 56, he again quotes a passage from the book, introducing it as: A…
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The advertisement Mark Twain inserted into The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain’s story of the Wandering Jew in Chapter 54 of the The Innocents Abroad says their guide pointed out a mark left on a wall by the Wandering Jew, which read: S T.—1860—X. It isn’t dwelt on in the book, probably because everyone in the United States reading the book understood the joke immediately.…
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The Quaker City in the Levant Herald
When Mark Twain was traveling on the Quaker City, the ship stopped twice in Constantinople (now the city of Istanbul) in Turkey. In Chapter 34 of The Innocents Abroad, Twain mentions the local English-language paper (actually bilingual, as it was printed in both English and French), The Levant Herald. Twain mentions the paper and others…
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Building a lexicon
We’re going to dive into the deep end on the first post here, and explain some of what we do differently here at Quint. Our first book being prepared is Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, which was published in 1869. It might be surprising to many that this book, which many people have never heard…