The semi-autobiographical "Roughing It" is Mark Twain's somewhat fictional account of his real-life adventures in the 19th-century American West. He went west by stagecoach, to serve as his brother Orion's personal secretary. Orion had secured the position of being Secretary of the Nevada Territory. In this exciting, adventure-filled book, Twain recounts his experiences as a frontier newspaper reporter, a prospector, and a writer. By reading this book, one gets a first-hand account from a great writer who was not only on hand to observe history-in-the-making but also helped to make that history. Of course, as is true of any of the books Twain wrote, "Roughing It" is chock full of social commentary and hilarious observations about what he refers to elsewhere as "the only animal that blushes--or needs to."
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The review of this Book prepared by Gary L. Pullman