Innocents Abroad

Twain, a brash young journalist with one book under his belt, was one of seventy-seven passengers on the steamship Quaker City when it left New York in June 1867, to begin ?The Grand Holy Land Pleasure Excursion.? As special correspondent for the Daily Alta California, Twain wrote fifty letters during the next six months, describing in detail the places visited and the sights seen as the pilgrims journeyed from Tangier to Paris, then to Venice, Constantinople, and Bethlehem?with many stops in between. Twain later used the letters, full of sprightly humor and savage satire, to write "The Innocents Abroad", probably the most famous travel book ever written by an American.