The Innocents AbroadBy: Mark Twain Based on a series of letters Mark Twain wrote from Europe to newspapers in San Francisco and New York as a roving correspondent, The Innocents Abroad (1869) is a burlesque of the sentimental travel books popular in the mid nineteenth century. Twain's fresh and humorous perspective on hallowed European landmarks lacked reverence for the past the ancient statues of saints on the Cathedral of Notre Dame are "battered and broken nosed old