THE INNOCENTS ABROAD
[Being an Account of the Steamship Quaker City’s 1867 Pleasure Excursion to Europe and the Holy Land; with Descriptions of Countries, Nations, Incidents and Adventures, as They Appeared to the Author]
in a new release, with text following a copy of the first edition in the possession of Northwestern University Library, with cartoon illustrations by Heather McAdams
[Who was Sent by the Publisher in the Summer of 1995 to Retrace the Author’s Steps and Report on the Present State of Tourism]
"The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language."
So wrote Mark Twain in 1867, in one of his most exuberant nonfiction works, The Innocents Abroad. The companion themes that fill it—the shallowness of the sites to be visited and the shallowness of the visitors—prove to be prophetic of tourism down through the present time, as revealed in Heather McAdams’ new cartoons, completed for this edition.
The Innocents Abroad was printed in an edition of 200 on Johannot, set in Monotype Bell, and re-spaced manually. It has 445 text pages plus 20 pages of illustrations in two volumes which are each 7 3/4 by 11 1/4 inches. The non-adhesive binding with exposed spine sewing consists of 7 black double raised cords attached to hard covers wrapped in red cloth. The two volumes are in turn housed in a black and white linen covered hard case wrapper with black leather straps over brass studs, intended to suggest a portmanteau. $1200 postpaid. (Ten unbound copies will be available for $640. An additional set of the cartoons, suitable for framing, can be added for $120.)
The Innocents Abroad was designed by Bob McCamant, printed by Martha Chiplis and bound by Trisha Hammer.
