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Chasing the last laugh : Mark Twain's raucous and redemptive round-the-world comedy tour / Richard Zacks
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Chasing the last laugh : Mark Twain's raucous and redemptive round-the-world comedy tour / Richard Zacks

by Richard Zacks

This biography chronicles Mark Twain's five-year global lecture tour, undertaken in 1895 to repay his substantial debts. It follows his journey through Australia, India and South Africa, documenting his struggles and eventual return to financial and literary success.

Accession 11997 ISBN 9780385536448 Publisher —
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TAGS
Curated Derived
Art Authors Biography Communication Entertainment History Literature Music Wit and Humor
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True
position_updated_at
2026-05-19 11:37
orientation
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Details

Physical

binding_type
Hard Back
dimensions
none captured
spine_text
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LOCATION HISTORY
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Identity

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Chasing the last laugh : Mark Twain's raucous and redemptive round-the-world comedy tour / Richard Zacks
vernon_id
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11997
vernon_slug
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Drives Pulse state

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Descriptive

production_date
2016
object_type
Books/Document genres/Information forms/Visual and Verbal Communication
object_status
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brief_description
An account of Mark Twain's late-life adventures abroad. In 1895, at age sixty, Mark Twain was dead broke and miserable--his recent novels had been critical and commercial failures, and he was bankrupted by his inexplicable decision to run a publishing company. His wife made him promise to pay every debt back in full, so Twain embarked on an around-the-world comedy lecture tour that would take him from the dusty small towns of the American West to the faraway lands of India, South Africa, Australia, and beyond. Richard Zacks' rich and entertaining narrative provides a portrait of Twain as complicated, vibrant individual, and showcases the biting wit and skeptical observation that made him one of the greatest of all American writers. Twain remained abroad for five years, a time of struggle and wild experiences -- and ultimately redemption, as he rediscovered his voice as a writer and humorist, and returned, wiser and celebrated. As he said in his famous reply to an article about his demise, "the report of my death is an exaggeration." Weaving together a trove of sources, including newspaper accounts, correspondence, and unpublished material from Berkeley's ongoing Twain Project, Zacks chronicles a chapter of Twain's life as complex as the author himself, full of foolishness and bad choices, but also humor, self-discovery, and triumph.

Subjects & people

authors→ author (initial fill only)
Richard Zacks
tags→ tags
Arts, History, Persons, Literature, Philology, Performing arts, Biography, Wit and humour, Authors, Litterateurs, Philologists, Scholars, Travel, Comedy, Authors, American
subject_people
Mark Twain (American, b.1835, d.1910)
subject_objects
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