A Tramp Abroad

A Tramp Abroad is a work of non-fiction travel literature by American author Mark Twain. The book details a journey by the author, with his friend Harris (a character created for the book, and based on his closest friend, Joseph Twichell), through central and southern Europe. While the stated goal of the journey is to walk most of the way, the men find themselves using other forms of transport as they traverse the continent. The book is often thought to be an unofficial sequel to an earlier Twain travel book, The Innocents Abroad.

As the two men make their way through Germany, the Alps, and Italy, they encounter situations made all the more humorous by their reactions to them. The narrator (Twain) plays the part of the American tourist of the time, believing that he understands all that he sees, but in reality understanding none of it.

By : Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

01 - The Knighted Knave of Bergen 02 - Heidelberg [Landing a Monarch at Heidelberg] 03 - Baker's Bluejay Yarn [What Stumped the Blue Jays] 04 - Student Life [The Laborious Beer King] 05 - At the Students' Dueling-Ground [Dueling by Wholesale] 06 - A Sport that Sometimes Kills 07 - How Bismark Fought 08 - The Great French 09 - What the Beautiful Maiden Said 10 - How Wagner Operas Bang Along 11 - I Paint a Turner 12 - What the Wives Saved 13 - My Long Crawl in the Dark 14 - Rafting Down the Neckar 15 - Down the River [Charming Waterside Pictures] 16 - An Ancient Legend of the Rhine [The Lorelei] 17 - Why Germans Wear Spectacles 18 - The Kindly Courtesy of Germans 19 - The Deadly Jest of Dilsberg 20 - My Precious, Priceless Tear-Jug 21 - Insolent Shopke 22 - The Black Forest and its Treasures 23 - Nicodemus Dodge and the Skeleton 24 - I Protect the Empress of Germany 25 - Hunted by the Little Chamois 26 - The Nest of the Cuckoo-clock 27 - I Spare an Awful Bore 28 - The Jodel and Its Native Wilds 29 - Looking West for Sunrise 30 - Harris Climbs Mountains For Me 31 - Alp-scaling by Carriage 32 - The Jungfrau, the Bride, and the Piano 33 - We Climb Far-- By Buggy 34 - The World's Highest Pig Farm 35 - Swindling the Coroner 36 - The Fiendish Fun of Alp-Cimbing 37 - Our Imposing Column Starts Upward 38 - I Conquer the Gorner Grat 39 - We Travel by Glacier 40 - Piteous Relics at Chamonix 41 - The Dearful Disater of 1865 42 - Chillon has a Nice, Roomy Dungeon 43 - My Poor Sick Friend Disappointed 44 - I Scale Mont Blanc--by Telescope 45 - A Catastrophe Which Cost Eleven Lives [Perished at the Verge of Safety] 46 - Meeting a Hog on a Precipice 47 - Queer European Manners 48 - Beauty of Women--and of Old Masters 49 - Hanged with a Golden Rope 50 - Titian Bad and Titian Good 51 - Appendix A: The Portier 52 - Appendix B: Heidelberg Castle 53 - Appendix C: The College Prison 54 - Appendix D: The Awful German Language 55 - Appendix E: Legend of the Castles 56 - Appendix F: German Journals

The first half of the book covers their stay in south-western Germany (Heidelberg, Mannheim, a trip on the Neckar river, Baden-Baden and the Black Forest). The second part describes his travels through Switzerland and eastern France (Lucerne, Interlaken, Zermatt, Chamonix and Geneva). The end of the book covers his trip through several cities in northern Italy (Milan, Venice and Rome). Several other cities are touched and described during their travels, as well as mountains such as Matterhorn, the Jungfrau, the Rigi-Kulm and Mont-Blanc.

Interleaved with the narration, Mark Twain inserted also stories not related to the trip, such as Bluejay Yarn, The Man who put up at Gadsby's and others; as well as many German Legends, partly invented by the author himself.

Six appendices are included in the book. They are short essays dedicated to different topics. The role of The Portier in European hotels and how they make their living, a description of Heidelberg Castle, an essay on College Prisons in Germany, "The Awful German Language", a humorous essay on German language, a short story called "The Legend of the Castle" and finally a satirical description of German newspapers.