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MARK TWAIN “FOLLOWING THE UCATOR, Mr. Diemen's new volume, “Following the Equator,” is now out. It is a large octavo of more than seven huudred pages. It is a journal of travel from, Vancouver to Australia and New Zea land, thence to India, thence to South Africa and back to England. This au thor’s “Impressions de Voyage’ are de lightfully fresh, piquant, and vivid. With the instinct of the true observer he keps himself in the background and describes the “thing as it appeared.” One would never get the idea from these pages that he was the courted and dis tinguished guest of society nor that he Was va successful tecturtr— addressing: lightly audiences that were numbered Thousands. Here merely to a cute and whimsical stranger “visiting the cities of many, men ,and noiting their customs Time: has somewhat sobered the ex travagance of youth. Passages of ex aggerated fun are leaso numerous that they Were in the “Innocents, Abroad” There is more wit, however, and the hu mor is more tempered is not less original. and striking . The chapters on India seem to us to bring that country, ‘which evidently made a strong impresenti on the writer's imagination, more clearly before the reader's eye than, anything we have read about Hindustan, not ex cepting..the most graphic of Rudyard Kipling's story We see the crowds in the streets, the that strange and the architecture, the wealth of color the contrasted splendor ami squalor, as Mark Twain saw it; through the hu morous medium, indeed, but with Sart ling reality. “To our mind this picture, of India is one of’ Mr. Clemen’s © great things There is entertainment all through the book. His appetite is jaded , who finds a dull page... Real power is shown is_the description of Ahuggery, but 'yey which by some Slight touch at once re lieves and intensifies the horror of the ‘hing, prevents the description from be ing repulsive and makes it the more impressive by contrast. Comparing this book with the “Inno cents Abbad” brings out strikingly, the great advance that has been made to the art of illustration during ‘the last quarter of’a century. The pictures in “Following the Equator,” are all good and help to tell the story. ‘They are il lustrations that illustrate. We are glad to note the name of CA Gilbert, a Hartford boy, among the artists, with such others as Beard, Frost and Rhein hart. There are nearly two hundred pictures (forty-six of them full-page drawings), and all of a high degree of merit. The book is a credit to the pub lishers and printers. Those who buy it will get their money's worth of fun and their money's worth of information both. The above is from the editorial re view of the Hartford Courant. The work will be ready for delivery to sub scribers after December 15th. Those wishing to make use of it as a Christ mas present should send their names and addresses to C. Collard, Adams, Cromwell, who wil call and exhibit a copy.
Newspaper Details
The Penny Press
Middletown, Connecticut, US
Mon, Dec 06, 1897
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Richard D.
