Roughing It by Mark Twain

An account of his travels out west – and beyond – is captured here, in the pages of Roughing It. Twain offers a fascinating glimpse into the dawn and development of a new nation – a vast, continent-sized nation coalescing slowly into a more unified whole. But perhaps just as interesting is the development of Twain's voice as a writer and the shaping of the rough and earthy humor that would eventually become synonymous with one of the America's best-known novelists.