Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome was first published in 1889. It is the fictional story of three London friends and a dog taking a leisurely boat trip up the River Thames, from Kingston-upon-Thames to Oxford. It is narrated by 'J.', whose companions are George (awarded no surname), William Samuel Harris and the dog, Montmorency. During a sociable evening in J.'s room, the three men convince themselves that they each have various illnesses. Their collective diagnosis is overwork, and they prescribe themselves a fortnight's holiday. A stay in the country and a sea voyage are both ruled out, and they settle instead on a boating trip, travelling on the Thames by day and camping out in the hired boat at night. They set out the following Saturday. George must work in the City in the morning, and so arranges to join them later that day. The other two, accompanied by the dog and a mountain of luggage, get a cab to Waterloo station, but are unable to find the correct train to Kingston. Eventually they bribe the driver of another train to take them there instead, one of the many humorous set-pieces that make the book more than a straightforward travelogue. George completes the trio at Weybridge, with a dubious-looking parcel tucked under his arm, which turns out to be a banjo and instruction book. The story is a tapestry of incidents that occur, anecdotes on various topics (including the unreliability of weather forecasts), loosely connected digressions (such as J.'s uncle's inability to hang pictures), and descriptive pieces on the places that they pass. It is in these descriptive pieces that the author's original intention of writing a guidebook is most apparent. What he actually achieved was a classic of British humorous writing. Although the book was written over a century ago, it has an enduring, timeless quality Jerome Klapka Jerome says Jerome K. Jerome was born in Walsall (Staffordshire), England, May 2, 1859 and died in Northampton (Northamptonshire, England) June 14, 1927, is a British writer of humorous novels, best known for his book three men in a boat (1889). Biography [edit - modify the code] Jerome Klapka Jerome was the fourth child of Jerome Clapp (who changed his name Jerome Clapp Jerome), a hardware store and Protestant lay preacher and Margaret Jones: subsequent change of the "Clapp" Jerome Clapp Jerome son in "Klapka" seems inspired by the surname of Klapka, General Hungarian exile in England. The family in easy start, slipping into poverty and debt; as a result of poor investments in a coal mine, the paternal business collapse when he was only two years. Hating school, he fustigera repeatedly methods in his books, Jerome K. Jerome leaves at fourteen, because fatherless at the age of thirteen, and mother at the age of fifteen it must provide itself with its needs, and be thwarted in his ambitions for political or literary career. It then connects the small jobs: it collects for four years coal fell beside the tracks for the London and North Western Railway and journalist, actor and teacher. He however Household time for writing. His first book, On and off stage, was published in 1885 and will be followed by many other books, plays and newspaper articles. In 1886 appear Lazy Thoughts of a lazy, its first small success. But it is mainly Three Men in a Boat, published in 1889, that he became known to the public. The success is such that an estimated approximately one million pirated copies circulating in the world at the time. This book remains the best known of Jerome K. Jerome. However, it will never meet the critical success. Max Beerbohm say especially that he is a "writer of tenth order that floods us with his tenth-rate products," even as Harrowsmith editor reeling under the effect of the application, saying sarcastically that the public must surely "eat the books."