Following the Equator

Following the Equator

Following the Equator cover
Author	Mark Twain
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Travel literature
Publisher	American Publishing Company
Publication date	1897
Media type	Print
Pages	718
Preceded by	Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Followed by	A Dog's Tale

Following the Equator (sometimes titled More Tramps Abroad) is a non-fiction travelogue published by American author Mark Twain in 1897.

Twain was practically bankrupt in 1894 due to a failed investment into a "revolutionary" typesetting machine. In an attempt to extricate himself from debt of $100,000 (equivalent of about $2.5 million in 2010) he undertook a tour of the British Empire in 1895, a route chosen to provide numerous opportunities for lectures in English.

Themes

The book is an account of Twain's travel published in 1897. It is a social commentary, critical of racism towards Blacks, Asians, and Indigenous groups; oppressive imperialism in the British Empire; and religious intolerance through missionary efforts.

Twain included a number of fictional stories in the body of what is otherwise a non-fiction work. In particular, the story of how Cecil Rhodes made his fortune by finding a newspaper in the belly of a shark, and the story of how a man named Ed Jackson made good in life out of a fake letter of introduction to Cornelius Vanderbilt, were anthologized in Charles Neider (ed) The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain, (Doubleday, 1957) where they are presented as fiction.

External links

• Twain's Notes, Mock-up of Title Page, Dedication of Following the Equator Shapell Manuscript Foundation
• Olivia Langdon Clemens to Publisher Walter Bliss on Success of Following the Equator
• Following the Equator at Project Gutenberg
• Following the Equator public domain audiobook at LibriVox