Around the World With Mark Twain

On July 14, 1895, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, fifty-nine years old and deeply in debt, boarded a night train to Cleveland, launching a performance tour designed to alleviate his financial woes and, more important, resuscitate his alter ego, Mark Twain. The journey took him to Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa and led to the resurrection of Twain as a celebrity.

One hundred years later, Robert Cooper set out in pursuit of Clemens, following the writer's itinerary train for train, ship for ship, venue for venue in a remarkable feat of biographical recreation.

Equal parts travelogue, social history, and biography, Around the World with Mark Twain paints a decidedly different portrait of Clemens: a tragic, darker figure who faced financial ruin and personal loss throughout his life.
-- The book contains never-before-published information about Twain's journey through the South Pacific.
-- The writing evokes Theroux, Naipaul, and Chatwin.
-- Offers a unique glimpse -- through the eyes of Clemens -- of exotic parts of the world at the turn of the century.