Folio Archives 337: Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain 2006
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1wcarter
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain 2006
This is the intriguing autobiography of Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain. It is also a history of steam boating on the Mississippi that lasted a mere 50 years from about 1810 to 1861 when the river was closed by the Civil War and afterwards replaced by the railways.
Clemens actually qualified as a river pilot, and the story starts with his apprenticeship, trials and tribulations in becoming a pilot with amusing anecdotes, colourful tales of life along the river and disasters on it. It then skips more than twenty years of Clemens’ life as he travelled widely and started writing, before returning to the great river.
The second half of the book is filled with tales (some tall, some true, some a mix) from residents and workers along the river, and Clemens’ reminiscences and opinions on everything from hygiene to architecture, the church and politics.
Early sections of this book morphed into Huckleberry Finn, and some extracts from this novel appear in the biography.
Introduced by Ron Powers, the xxviii + 384 page book has 12 bound-in pages of prints, drawings and photographs relating to the Mississippi. It has light blue endpapers and is bound in dark blue cloth, cover blocked in gilt with a map of the Mississippi. The dark blue slipcase has a dramatic colour picture of a paddle wheeler steamboat pasted to the front and measures 24.7x17.1cm.
An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.
This is the intriguing autobiography of Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain. It is also a history of steam boating on the Mississippi that lasted a mere 50 years from about 1810 to 1861 when the river was closed by the Civil War and afterwards replaced by the railways.
Clemens actually qualified as a river pilot, and the story starts with his apprenticeship, trials and tribulations in becoming a pilot with amusing anecdotes, colourful tales of life along the river and disasters on it. It then skips more than twenty years of Clemens’ life as he travelled widely and started writing, before returning to the great river.
The second half of the book is filled with tales (some tall, some true, some a mix) from residents and workers along the river, and Clemens’ reminiscences and opinions on everything from hygiene to architecture, the church and politics.
Early sections of this book morphed into Huckleberry Finn, and some extracts from this novel appear in the biography.
Introduced by Ron Powers, the xxviii + 384 page book has 12 bound-in pages of prints, drawings and photographs relating to the Mississippi. It has light blue endpapers and is bound in dark blue cloth, cover blocked in gilt with a map of the Mississippi. The dark blue slipcase has a dramatic colour picture of a paddle wheeler steamboat pasted to the front and measures 24.7x17.1cm.
An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.
2ian_curtin
A nice standard edition. I haven't read any Twain in donkey's years, and even then it was Huck, Tom and the famous short stories. This sounds well worth a look. The recent volume looked interesting as well.
A nice companion for this volume - a modern take on the river - would be Jonathan Raban's Old Glory.
A nice companion for this volume - a modern take on the river - would be Jonathan Raban's Old Glory.
