An account of Twain's experiences as an apprentice riverboat pilot in the days of the great Mississippi steamboats. Both a memoir and a travel book, Mark Twain recalls his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War, and then many years after, recounts a trip as passenger along the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans. The book begins with a brief history of the river as reported by Europeans and Americans,...

The author of Bad Land realizes a lifelong dream as he navigates the waters of the Mississippi River in a spartan sixteen-foot motorboat, producing yet another masterpiece of contemporary American travel writing. In the course of his voyage, Raban records the mercurial caprices of the river and the astonishingly varied lives of the people who live along its banks. Whether he is fishing for walleye or hunting coon, discussing theology in Prairie...

"Beginning in the early 1800s and climaxing with the siege of Vicksburg in 1863, 'Wicked River' takes us back to a time before the Mississippi was dredged into a shipping channel, and before Mark Twain romanticized it into myth. Drawing on an array of suspenseful and bizarre firsthand accounts, Sandlin brings to life a place where river pirates brushed elbows with future presidents and religious visionaries shared passage with thieves; a world unto...

Travel down the Mississippi River begun in 1979.