Audiobook · read by volunteers
Roughing It
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
Read by John Greenman · 82 chapters · 16 h 56
About the book
When Samuel Clemens, not yet Mark Twain, accompanies his brother on a stagecoach journey to Nevada Territory, he expects adventure. What he gets is a long series of misadventures: bumpy roads, silver-mining fever, bad horses, worse speculation, a camping trip that ends in fire, and a stay in the Sandwich Islands. Mark Twain turns every misfortune into comedy, and the tall tales grow taller as he goes. Between the jokes, however, he gives a lively picture of life in the American West in the 1860s. The book is part memoir, part exaggeration and entirely entertaining. John Greenman reads the eighty-two short chapters, and the miles pass quickly in his company. It is full of tall tales, hard luck and cheerful nerve, told by a man who clearly enjoys the company of his own mistakes.
Introduction
Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who lived from 1835 to 1910. Roughing It, published in 1872, was his second major travel book, following The Innocents Abroad. It describes his years in the West, beginning with an overland journey by stagecoach to Nevada, and it covers his time in the silver mining towns, his work as a newspaper writer, and a visit to Hawaii. It was composed from his own experiences in the years around 1861 to 1867.
The book is semi-autobiographical, which is to say that Twain allowed himself the freedom of a storyteller. Real events are stretched, embroidered and reshaped for comic effect, and some episodes are tall tales told with a straight face. Yet beneath the humour, the book gives a valuable picture of the frontier, its boom-and-bust economy, its hardships and its strange characters. It also shows Twain finding the voice that would make him famous.
This LibriVox recording is long, nearly seventeen hours, and is divided into 82 chapters. It is read throughout by a single volunteer, John Greenman, which gives the whole a consistent tone. It is a good book for a long journey of your own, and it remains one of the funniest accounts of American pioneer life, as fresh now as when it first appeared.
Twain's gift for exaggeration is at its height here, and many of the best-known episodes, such as the tale of the genuine Mexican plug, have delighted audiences for generations. Listen for the dry deadpan delivery that makes the jokes land, and for the sudden flashes of real description.
Public domain
Mark Twain died in 1910: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text