On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 4:52 AM, Barbara Schmidt <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > _Mark Twain's Geographical Imagination_. Joseph A. Alvarez, ed. Cambridge > Scholars Publishing, 2009. Hardcover, 167 pages. $58.95. ISBN: > 978-4438-0585-8. > > Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by: > Barbara Schmidt > > > Copyright (c) 2017 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or > redistributed in any medium without permission. > Thank you for this review, Barbara. I am not sure I can excerpt the Kesterson paragraph which meant a great deal to me. I share his view that the trip to the Sandwich Island was enormously significant to Mark Twain's subsequent career. I give occasional talks and love to make the same point, except I give my hometown and present residence, Sacramento, California, all of the credit for Mark Twain's future with travel writing, giving lectures, increased credibility in the east as a newspaperman, and writing books. My local audiences love that twist. I assert this view with confidence because he was commissioned to take that voyage to the Sandwich Islands by our important newspaper at the time, The Sacramento Union. Without it, what would have become of him? I've feel sad that on his around the world tour, he was not able to get off the ship there because cholera was on the island. He once said he'd like to die there. I know he would have enjoyed seeing it one more time. Thanks again, Grateful Arianne Laidlaw