Mark Twain's book The Innocents Abroad is published - July 20

July 20, 1869

Mark Twain's book The Innocents Abroad is published, recounting his journey to Europe and the Holy Land in 1869. The book became a bestseller.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who adopted the pseudonym Mark Twain, was born in Hannibal, Missouri. Apprenticed to a printer at age 13, he later worked for his older brother, who established the Hannibal Journal.
In 1857, Clemens became a steamboat pilot's apprentice, earned his license, and piloted his own boats for two years. During his time as a pilot, he picked up the term "Mark Twain," a boatman's call noting that the river was only two fathoms deep, the minimum depth for safe navigation. When Clemens returned to writing in 1861, working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, he wrote a humorous travel letter signed by "Mark Twain" and continued to use the pseudonym for nearly 50 years.
In 1866, Clemens went to Hawaii as a correspondent for the Sacramento Union. Later, he traveled the world writing accounts for papers in California and New York, which became The Innocents Abroad.
In 1870, Clemens married the daughter of a wealthy New York coal merchant and settled in Hartford, Connecticut, where he continued to write travel accounts and lecture. In 1875, his novel Tom Sawyer was published, followed by Life on the Mississippi (1883). Bad investments left Clemens bankrupt after the publication of his masterpiece Huckleberry Finn in 1885, but he won back his financial standing with his next three books. In 1903, he and his family moved to Italy, where his wife died. Her death left him sad and bitter, and his work, while still humorous, grew distinctly darker. He died in 1910.