Prefactory Summary

"Roughing It" is Mark Twain's second novel. It is a humorous collection of facts and a somewhat informal travel journal, in which the narrator goes from St. Louis to San Francisco and the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) in the early 1860's. The explosion of the mining business in the Western States of the Union, and more specifically the Territory of Nevada, serve as a backdrop for many of the narrator's adventures. The author examines the economic boom of the area and its consequences on the people; the evolution of English as a diversified language, and the transformation of nature by man. The mainly humorous tone of the novel is grounded in the many mishaps, errors of judgments and various mistakes that are constantly preventing the author from attaining his goal - becoming rich with little effort on his part. The book digs in a...