Life on the Mississippi
by Mark Twain
First published 1875 · English · 306 pages
- Novels
- Adventure
- Science fiction
- Young adult
Part memoir and part river portrait, this book describes the Mississippi as Twain knew it. The first section recalls his youth as an apprentice steamboat pilot, learning the shifting channels, sandbars and landmarks from a demanding teacher. The later chapters describe a return trip years afterward, when the river and its towns had changed.
Twain mixes technical detail, tall tales, history and sharp character sketches. It is valued as a record of a vanished way of life and as a key to the river that runs through his fiction.
Quotes
The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book.
The world and the books are so accustomed to use, and over-use, the word 'new' in connection with our country, that we early get and permanently retain the impression that there is nothing old about it.
When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales! I scratch my head with the lightning, and purr myself to sleep with the thunder!
Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.