Twain travel tales to be reissued

Mark Twain may be best-known as the creator of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but he also was a well-known travel writer in his day, writing five books about life around the country and the world.

Two new editions of Twain’s travel writings are being published this fall.

“Following the Equator” ($14), being reissued this month by National Geographic as part of its Adventure Classic Series, is an account of Twain’s journeys during an around-the-world lecture tour. He circled the globe by steamship, train, and rickshaw, from Paris to Vancouver and on to the South Seas, Australia, India and South Africa.

“Mark Twain on Travel” ($24.95), due in November from The Lyons Press, includes excerpts from “Life on the Mississippi,” “Roughing It,” “Following the Equator,” “Innocents Abroad” and “A Tramp Abroad.”

In “Innocents Abroad,” Twain followed a group of Americans on a religious pilgrimage to the Holy Land. “Roughing It” describes his misadventures in Western mining camps, while “Life on the Mississippi” brought him back to the region of his boyhood.

And in “A Tramp Abroad,” Twain contrasted his Yankee provincialism against the high culture of Europe.