Three Men in a Boat: The classic and pioneering example of dry British wit

His family were reduced to poverty whilst he was a toddler owning to failed investments in the local mining industry.

After several moves in declining circumstances Jerome became a pupil at St Marylebone Grammar School. His aim then was to go into politics, or even become a man of letters, but with the death of his father, when he was thirteen, and his mother two years later, now meant that he had to support himself and leave all thoughts of education behind.

He spent four years working for the London and North Western Railway, initially collecting coal that fell along the railway lines. Thereafter, using the name Harold Crichton, he tried his hand at acting but the repertory company he joined was stretched in its resources and, at times, relied on the actors to purchase their own props and costumes. After three years he tried journalism, teaching and work as a solicitor’s clerk. All came to nothing. Finally, in 1885, he had some success with ‘On the Stage―and Off’, a comic memoir collection of his stage experiences and his early attempts at acting.

Shortly thereafter he married and his honeymoon on the Thames became the inspiration for ‘Three Men in a Boat’. This of course was a wild success, both critically and commercially, but also his creative high point.

Although he was now able to write full time, he was never able to attain all the heights of that classic humorous novel. He remained a prolific writer of novels, plays and short stories and its from those classic works that these stories have been mined.

Jerome K Jerome died in Northampton General Hospital on the 14th June 1927 two weeks after suffering a paralytic stroke and a cerebral haemorrhage on a motoring tour. He was 68.