At Home Abroad

At

Home Abroad: Mark Twain in Australasiaby Miriam Jones ShillingsburgAt Home Abroad brings attention to a little known period in the career of Americas most notable humorist. It follows this writer-performer down under on a journey through thirty lectures in colonial Australia and New Zealand. This appealing book is a daily account of Twains activities and is based upon his notebooks, his letters, and newspaper reports that appeared both in cities and in the provinces. Shillingsburg offers serious evaluation of Australasian criticism that appeared in reviews of Twains performances, in editorials about humor, and in the critical reception of his last travel book, More Tramps Abroad. She shows this world-famous literary man in his posturing and performing as he delights the audiences down under. She begins with an account of Twains accumulating of debt and his bankruptcy in the early nineties and provides biographical details during the last fifteen weeks of 1895. The cultural and intellectual context in which she places this information clarifies Twains mystifying comments to reporters, the puzzling responses to some of his jokes, and his unique notebook entries. Shillingsburg shows that Twains interest in geography and local history illuminates comments he made in his travel book. Her discussion of the distinctive political and economic matters in the colonies gives a clue to the enormously popular reception he received, for on this tour Twain captivated nearly everyone. Not only the glamorous but also the ordinary folk paid their splendid shilling to hear him. Looking like a graven image, he spun out his seemingly spontaneous yarns. The questions they asked him reveal how well they knew American literature in 1895 and show their earnest groping to find their own native literature. Those questions and the articles written from them, in turn, drew Twains compliments and demonstrated a mutual respect between the master humorist and his audience. Shi