Other Non-Fiction Twain, Mark: Roughing It (illustrated). v3. 19 Dec 2013

[GrannyGrump]

ROUGHING IT
By Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835 – 1910)
With 302 Illustrations by “Eminent Artists” (unattributed)
First published 1872

Mark Twain is most noted for his novels, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876), and its sequel, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1885), the latter often called "the Great American Novel." Among dozens of titles, some of his works include “The Innocents Abroad,” “A Tramp Abroad,” “Life on the Mississippi,” “The Prince and the Pauper,” “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,” and many more.

After a brief stint as a Confederate cavalry militiaman (not included in this account), Samuel Clemens joined his brother Orion, who had been appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory, on a stagecoach journey west. This “memoir” chronicles many of young Mark Twain's early adventures and misadventures during the years 1861 – 1867 in the American Wild West and in Hawaii, including an educational visit to Salt Lake City, gold and silver prospecting, real-estate speculation, exploration of live volcano craters, acquisition of a Genuine Mexican Plug, ephemeral wealth, tangible poverty, and his beginnings as a writer.

There are plenty of facts to be found in this book – true facts,interesting facts, useful and educational facts – but the most enjoyable parts are the wonderful tall tales and wild exaggeration, such as can be found in “Dick Baker and His Cat”, “Jim Blaine and His Grandfather’s Ram”, “The Great Landslide Case”, and Mr. Johnson’s account of Brigham Young’s home life.

The illustrations add another dimension of humor and education – readers whose mental picture of the inhabitants of the American Old West is based on those old clean-cut syndicated television shows will be amazed and amused by the portrayal of the “roughs” and the “dudes”. And even the depictions of our furred and feathered friends show distinct personalities. (Sadly, these illustrations were eliminated from most later editions.)

Whether this book is being read for the first time, or re-visited as an old friend, it is an invaluable look at the seminal style of Mark Twain.

An excerpt to whet your appetite:

Spoiler:

Sage-brush is very fair fuel, but as a vegetable it is a distinguished failure. Nothing can abide the taste of it but the jackass and his illegitimate child the mule. But their testimony to its nutritiousness is worth nothing, for they will eat pine knots, or anthracite coal, or brass filings, or lead pipe, or old bottles, or anything that comes handy, and then go off looking as grateful as if they had had oysters for dinner. Mules and donkeys and camels have appetites that anything will relieve temporarily, but nothing satisfy. In Syria, once, at the head-waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a critical eye, all over, with as much interest as if he had an idea of getting one made like it; and then, after he was done figuring on it as an article of apparel, he began to contemplate it as an article of diet. He put his foot on it, and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he had never tasted anything as good as an overcoat before, in his life. Then he smacked his lips once or twice, and reached after the other sleeve. Next he tried the velvet collar, and smiled a smile of such contentment that it was plain to see that he regarded that as the daintiest thing about an overcoat. The tails went next, along with some percussion caps and cough candy, and some fig-paste from Constantinople.

And then my newspaper correspondence dropped out, and he took a chance in that—manuscript letters written for the home papers. But he was treading on dangerous ground, now. He began to come across solid wisdom in those documents that was rather weighty on his stomach; and occasionally he would take a joke that would shake him up till it loosened his teeth; it was getting to be perilous times with him, but he held his grip with good courage and hopefully, till at last he began to stumble on statements that not even a camel could swallow with impunity. He began to gag and gasp, and his eyes to stand out, and his forelegs to spread, and in about a quarter of a minute he fell over as stiff as a carpenter’s work-bench, and died a death of indescribable agony. I went and pulled the manuscript out of his mouth, and found that the sensitive creature had choked to death on one of the mildest and gentlest statements of fact that I ever laid before a trusting public.

----------

Editorial notes: Formatted punctuation, restored italics, added scene breaks. Cross-linked chapter end-notes to source paragraphs; cross-linked chapter titles to html table of contents. Embedded fonts used for titling and small-caps. Split into two volumes due to the huge file size. Available in text-wrap and no-wrap versions.

This was proofed against a scan of the first edition, and I do wonder if all the British-style spelling (centre, fibre, programme, tyres, etc) is truly what Twain wrote, or if the publisher was trying to produce a "trans-Atlantic" book. (It's not British enough to be a "British version.") I'm sorry the illustrations are not better, the publisher used some sort of tinting process that rubbed off in patches.

Any and all feedback would be much appreciated.

Here's a challenge for you -- find all the depictions of Our Author. Remember, there were several artists, so he never looks the same way twice. A website said more than 60. I counted 77 (not including 14 tiny figures in distant landscapes), but I could be wrong...

Coming next -- A Tramp Abroad, with 328 first-edition illustrations.

-------------------
EDIT: Upload of Version 2. Corrections to text errors, some format tweaks, and new fonts. Slight reduction in file-size. (problems uploading, forgot to note down previous downloads. Awww...)

-------------------
EDIT: Upload of version 3. Added introductory material and more illustrations. The DropCaps version now has larger-resolution images. I hope you think the improvements are worth the file-size increase.

------------------
EDIT: Upload of version 4. Corrected a couple of silly copy&paste errors.

Previous downloads: DropCaps Vol 01 = 71; Vol 02 = 59. UpCaps Vol 01 = 46, Vol 02 = 46

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.

[AlexBell]

Thanks, grannyGrumpy. This was the first ebook I loaded on to my Sony T3 when it arrived this afternoon, and it looks great. I admire the time and effort which went into creating such a big ebook. Karma on its way.

Could you remind me please what is the difference between the Textwrap and NoWrap versions?

[GrannyGrump]

bless you. (I expect an error report, you know... )

The TextWrap has drop-caps, and a few images floated to the side with text wrapped around them.

NoWrap has large initial caps, and all images are centered on the page.

[AlexBell]

Thanks. If I see any errors I'll let you know.

[GrannyGrump]

I just uploaded version 2 of Roughing It. Tweaked a handful of format bits, fixed a basketful of text errors -- thanks to AlexBell for the assist!
Using different fonts for titling & caps. Slightly smaller file-size on these.

Offered in Text Wrap version with Drop Caps and wrapped images, and No Wrap version with Large Initial Caps and all images centered.

Enjoy!

[GrannyGrump]

Uploading Version 3.

I have added introductory pieces that were published in the "Uniform Edition, 1899; and a short memoir excerpt about Mark Twain written by Senator William M. Stewart (1827-1909) . Also added the illustrations from the Uniform Edition in an Editor's Appendix.

The TextWrap/DropCaps version now has illustrations in a larger resolution, so much bigger file-size.

The NoWrap/UpCaps version has smaller illustrations and all images are centered, not text-wrapped.

I hope you find the changes worthwhile.

[GrannyGrump]

Uploaded version 4. There were a couple of Copy&Paste errors. [blush]
So sorry about that.

[doubleshuffle]

How convenient that I kept postponing downloading version 3...

Thanks again for all your wonderful work on Twain!!

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

How convenient that I kept postponing downloading version 3...

I should have done that. Just yesterday I uploaded v.3 to my reader