Innocents Abroad FROM THE PUBLISHER
The Innocents Abroad is one of the most prominent and influential travel books ever written about Europe and the Holy Land. In it, the collision of the American "New Barbarians" and the European "Old World" provides much comic fodder for Mark Twain - and a remarkably perceptive lens on the human condition. Gleefully skewering the ethos of American tourism in Europe, Twain's lively satire ultimately reveals just what it is that defines cultural identity. As Twain himself points out. "Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
FROM THE CRITICS
AudioFile
[Editor's Note: The following is a combined review with MYSTERIOUS STRANGER AND OTHER STORIES.]—These two Twain titles were recorded in the mid 1980s. INNOCENTS is an early Twain work, expanding on a jocular series of travel articles he wrote on a Grand Tour of Europe and the Holy Land. Without trying to imitate Twain, narrator Prichard, who has recorded a number of titles by the same author, nicely plays the vigor, lightness, and wit of the original. He has a distinctly middle-aged sound, and the sharpish register of his voice cuts through the technical muddiness of the recording. Kent's voice does not. In STRANGER, we hear almost every edit, and there are many in his rendition of eight Twain short stories. The selection represents the author's entire career from the early, ironic "Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" to the late, bitter "Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg." Kent's excellent diction ensures that we miss not a word; on the down side, his reading is dry. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine
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