Touted as a “scenic byway,” it is often not scenic and occasionally a thruway. In Illinois alone, it comprises 29 different roads and highways. The Great River Road is a map line drawn in many inks, consisting of federal, state, county and town roads, and even, it sometimes seems, private drives. My guiding star would be the signs with the pilot-wheel logo that beckons all who are willing to suspend time and turn off the GPS.

He would have loved it.Īll that the model lacked was the highway running the Mississippi’s length-the Great River Road, my home for the next several days. What would Samuel Clemens have made of the Riverwalk? He was a grown child who readily took a God’s-eye view of life on earth. A mockingbird kept me company as I sauntered on the buff-colored concrete mosaic and watched kids tumble over the elevation intervals layered on the model’s riverbank, rising from the channel like a stairway of stacked pancakes. The Riverwalk affords an outdoor stroll that covers 1,000 miles on a scale of one step to the mile. I had come to the Rendezvous from the Riverwalk on Mud Island near downtown Memphis-a gurgling scale model of the lower half of the Mississippi from its confluence with the Ohio all the way to the Gulf. You work up a hunger walking half the length of the Mississippi-even along a virtual version of the river. Not until he became a full-time journalist, far from the river, in the alkali dust of the Nevada Territory, did he settle on “Mark Twain.” But “A Son of Adam,” along with “Josh” and “Rambler” and his other experiments, belonged to an amateur, a man who occasionally wrote while otherwise employed as a printer, steamboat pilot and miner. The restaurant’s slogan-“Not since Adam has a rib been this famous”-had reminded me of Mark Twain’s fondness for comic allusions to Adam, to the extent that he based an early pen name on him. I ran through the names in my head as I devoured dry-rub barbecue and piled up napkins at Memphis’ bustling Rendezvous. Production notes: This ebook of Life on the Mississippi was published by Global Grey in 2018.Josh. This book has 380 pages in the PDF version, and was originally published in 1883. It continues with anecdotes of Twain's training as a steamboat pilot, as the 'cub' (apprentice) of an experienced pilot, Horace E. The book begins with a brief history of the river as reported by Europeans and Americans, beginning with the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1542. Louis to New Orleans many years after the War. Life on the Mississippi Mark TwainĪvailable to download for free in PDF, epub, and Kindle ebook formats.Ī memoir by Mark Twain of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War, and also a travel book, recounting his trip along the Mississippi River from St. Buy the entire collection (over 2,400 ebooks) for only £15.

Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain