Three Men in a Boat

By Jerome K. Jerome

Initially intended to be a serious travel guide, Three Men in a Boat is a humorous account of a two-week boating holiday on the river Thames. Three men, complaining of overwork agree to go on a boating holiday together. After a rocky start involving the bribing of a railway driver, the three men (and a dog) cast off for adventure. Amusing anecdotes of camping and cooking mishaps are interspersed with descriptions of landmarks, pubs, and villages along the way. Hugely successful, the book spawned a sequel, about a cycling tour in Germany, titled Three Men on the Bummel (also known as Three Men on Wheels).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamscape Media
• Release date: Sep 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781974995356

Jerome K. Jerome

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) was a British writer and humorist best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat. Inspired by his honeymoon boat trip on the River Thames, the novel was initially derided by critics as “vulgar,” but it soon became a phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic and has never been out of print. 

Book preview

Chapter 1

Three invalids.—Sufferings of George and Harris.—A victim to one hundred and seven fatal maladies.—Useful prescriptions.—Cure for liver complaint in children.—We agree that we are overworked, and need rest.—A week on the rolling deep?—George suggests the River.—Montmorency lodges an objection.—Original motion carried by majority of three to one.

There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency.  We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were—bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.

We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it.  Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that he had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what he was doing.  With me, it was my liver that was out of order.  I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order.  I had them all.

It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form.  The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt.

Man reading book

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch—hay fever, I fancy it was.  I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally.  I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into—some fearful, devastating scourge, I know—and, before I had glanced half down the list of premonitory symptoms, it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.

I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages.  I came to typhoid fever—read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight.  Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years.  Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with.  I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.

I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight.  Why hadn’t I got housemaid’s knee?  Why this invidious reservation?  After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed.  I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid’s knee.  Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without my being aware of it; and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with from boyhood.  There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.

I sat and pondered.  I thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view, what an acquisition I should be to a class!  Students would have no need to walk the hospitals, if they had me.  I was a hospital in myself.  All they need do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma.

Then I wondered how long I had to live.  I tried to examine myself.  I felt my pulse.  I could not at first feel any pulse at all.  Then, all of a sudden, it seemed to start off.  I pulled out my watch and timed it.  I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute.  I tried to feel my heart.  I could not feel my heart.  It had stopped beating.  I have since been induced to come to the opinion that it must have been there all the time, and must have been beating, but I cannot account for it.  I patted myself all over my front, from what I call my waist up to my head, and I went a bit round each side, and a little way up the back.  But I could not feel or hear anything.  I tried to look at my tongue.  I stuck it out as far as ever it would go, and I shut one eye, and tried to examine it with the other.  I could only see the tip, and the only thing that I could gain from that was to feel more certain than before that I had scarlet fever.

Man with walking stick

I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man.  I crawled out a decrepit wreck.

I went to my medical man.  He is an old chum of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I’m ill; so I thought I would do him a good turn by going to him now.  What a doctor wants, I said, is practice.  He shall have me.  He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, commonplace patients, with only one or two diseases each.  So I went straight up and saw him, and he said:

Well, what’s the matter with you?

I said:

"I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me.  Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished.  But I will tell you what is not the matter with me.  I have not got housemaid’s knee.  Why I have not got housemaid’s knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it.  Everything else, however, I have got."

And I told him how I came to discover it all.

Then he opened me and looked down me, and clutched hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn’t expecting it—a cowardly thing to do, I call it—and immediately afterwards butted me with the side of his head.  After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out.

I did not open it.  I took it to the nearest chemist’s, and handed it in.  The man read it, and then handed it back.

He said he didn’t keep it.

I said:

You are a chemist?

He said:

I am a chemist.  If I was a co-operative stores and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you.  Being only a chemist hampers me.

I read the prescription.  It ran:

"1 lb. beefsteak, with

1 pt. bitter beer

every 6 hours.

1 ten-mile walk every morning.

1 bed at 11 sharp every night.

And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t understand."

I followed the directions, with the happy result—speaking for myself—that my life was preserved, and is still going on.

In the present instance, going back to the liver-pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being a general disinclination to work of any kind.

What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell.  From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it.  As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day.  They did not know, then, that it was my liver.  Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.

Why, you skulking little devil, you, they would say, get up and do something for your living, can’t you?—not knowing, of course, that I was ill.

And they didn’t give me pills; they gave me clumps on the side of the head.  And, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me—for the time being.  I have known one clump on the head have more effect upon my liver, and make me feel more anxious to go straight away then and there, and do what was wanted to be done, without further loss of time, than a whole box of pills does now.

You know, it often is so—those simple, old-fashioned remedies are sometimes more efficacious than all the dispensary stuff.

We sat there for half-an-hour, describing to each other our maladies.  I explained to George and William Harris how I felt when I got up in the morning, and William Harris told us how he felt when he went to bed; and George stood on the hearth-rug, and gave us a clever and powerful piece of acting, illustrative of how he felt in the night.

George fancies he is ill; but there’s never anything really the matter with him, you know.

At this point, Mrs. Poppets knocked at the door to know if we were ready for supper.  We smiled sadly at one another, and said we supposed we had better try to swallow a bit.  Harris said a little something in one’s stomach often kept the disease in check; and Mrs. Poppets brought the tray in, and we drew up to the table, and toyed with a little steak and onions, and some rhubarb tart.

I must have been very weak at the time; because I know, after the first half-hour or so, I seemed to take no interest whatever in my food—an unusual thing for me—and I didn’t want any cheese.

This duty done, we refilled our glasses, lit our pipes, and resumed the discussion upon our state of health.  What it was that was actually the matter with us, we none of us could be sure of; but the unanimous opinion was that it—whatever it was—had been brought on by overwork.

What we want is rest, said Harris.

Rest and a complete change, said George.  The overstrain upon our brains has produced a general depression throughout the system.  Change of scene, and absence of the necessity for thought, will restore the mental equilibrium.

George has a cousin, who is usually described in the charge-sheet as a medical student, so that he naturally has a somewhat family-physicianary way of putting things.

I agreed with George, and suggested that we should seek out some retired and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes—some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world—some quaint-perched eyrie on the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth century would sound far-off and faint.

Harris said he thought it would be humpy.  He said he knew the sort of place I meant; where everybody went to bed at eight o’clock, and you couldn’t get a Referee for love or money, and had to walk ten miles to get your baccy.

No, said Harris, if you want rest and change, you can’t beat a sea trip.

I objected to the sea trip strongly.  A sea trip does you good when you are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it is wicked.

You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself.  You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one.  On Tuesday, you wish you hadn’t come.  On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead.  On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now.  On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food.  And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it.

I remember my brother-in-law going for a short sea trip once, for the benefit of his health.  He took a return berth from London to Liverpool; and when he got to Liverpool, the only thing he was anxious about was to sell that return ticket.

It was offered round the town at a tremendous reduction, so I am told; and was eventually sold for eighteenpence to a bilious-looking youth who had just been advised by his medical men to go to the sea-side, and take exercise.

Sea-side! said my brother-in-law, pressing the ticket affectionately into his hand; why, you’ll have enough to last you a lifetime; and as for exercise! why, you’ll get more exercise, sitting down on that ship, than you would turning somersaults on dry land.

He himself—my brother-in-law—came back by train.  He said the North-Western Railway was healthy enough for him.

Another fellow I knew went for a week’s voyage round the coast, and, before they started, the steward came to him to ask whether he would pay for each meal as he had it, or arrange beforehand for the whole series.

The steward recommended the latter course, as it would come so much cheaper.  He said they would do him for the whole week at two pounds five.  He said for breakfast there would be fish, followed by a grill.  Lunch was at one, and consisted of four courses.  Dinner at six—soup, fish, entree, joint, poultry, salad, sweets, cheese, and dessert.  And a light meat supper at ten.

My friend thought he would close on the two-pound-five job (he is a hearty eater), and did so.

Lunch came just as they were off Sheerness.  He didn’t feel so hungry as he thought he should, and so contented himself with a bit of boiled beef, and some strawberries and cream.  He pondered a good deal during the afternoon, and at one time it seemed to him that he had been eating nothing but boiled beef for weeks, and at other times it seemed that he must have been living on strawberries and cream for years.

Neither the beef nor the strawberries and cream seemed happy, either—seemed discontented like.

At six, they came and told him dinner was ready.  The announcement aroused no enthusiasm within him, but he felt that there was some of that two-pound-five to be worked off, and he held on to ropes and things and went down.  A pleasant odour of onions and hot ham, mingled with fried fish and greens, greeted him at the bottom of the ladder; and then the steward came up with an oily smile, and said:

What can I get you, sir?

Man feeling ill

Get me out of this, was the feeble reply.

And they ran him up quick, and propped him up, over to leeward, and left him.

For the next four days he lived a simple and blameless life on thin captain’s biscuits (I mean that the biscuits were thin, not the captain) and soda-water; but, towards Saturday, he got uppish, and went in for weak tea and dry toast, and on Monday he was gorging himself on chicken broth.  He left the ship on Tuesday, and as it steamed away from the landing-stage he gazed after it regretfully.

There she goes, he said, there she goes, with two pounds’ worth of food on board that belongs to me, and that I haven’t had.

He said that if they had given him another day he thought he could have put it straight.

So I set my face against the sea trip.  Not, as I explained, upon my own account.  I was never queer.  But I was afraid for George.  George said he should be all right, and would rather like it, but he would advise Harris and me not to think of it, as he felt sure we should both be ill.  Harris said that, to himself, it was always a mystery how people managed to get sick at sea—said he thought people must do it on purpose, from affectation—said he had often wished to be, but had never been able.

Then he told us anecdotes of how he had gone across the Channel when it was so rough that the passengers had to be tied into their berths, and he and the captain were the only two living souls on board who were not ill.  Sometimes it was he and the second mate who were not ill; but it was generally he and one other man.  If not he and another man, then it was he by himself.

It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick—on land.  At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick.  Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery.

If most men were like a fellow I saw on the Yarmouth boat one day, I could account for the seeming enigma easily enough.  It was just off Southend Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning out through one of the port-holes in a very dangerous position.  I went up to him to try and save him.

Hi! come further in, I said, shaking him by the shoulder.  You’ll be overboard.

Oh my! I wish I was, was the only answer I could get; and there I had to leave him.

Three weeks afterwards, I met him in the coffee-room of a Bath hotel, talking about his voyages, and explaining, with enthusiasm, how he loved the sea.

Good sailor! he replied in answer to a mild young man’s envious query; "well, I did feel a little queer once, I confess.  It was off Cape Horn.  The vessel was wrecked the next morning."

I said:

Weren’t you a little shaky by Southend Pier one day, and wanted to be thrown overboard?

Southend Pier! he replied, with a puzzled expression.

Yes; going down to Yarmouth, last Friday three weeks.

Oh, ah—yes, he answered, brightening up; "I remember now.  I did have a headache that afternoon.  It was the pickles, you know.  They were the most disgraceful pickles I ever tasted in a respectable boat.  Did you have any?"

For myself, I have discovered an excellent preventive against sea-sickness, in balancing myself.  You stand in the centre of the deck, and, as the ship heaves and pitches, you move your body about, so as to keep it always straight.  When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost touches your nose; and when its back end gets up, you lean backwards.  This is all very well for an hour or two; but you can’t balance yourself for a week.

George said:

Let’s go up the river.

He said we should have fresh air, exercise and quiet; the constant change of scene would occupy our minds (including what there was of Harris’s); and the hard work would give us a good appetite, and make us sleep well.

Harris said he didn’t think George ought to do anything that would have a tendency to make him sleepier than he always was, as it might be dangerous.  He said he didn’t very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now, seeing that

Reviews for Three Men in a Boat

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jerome K. Jerome wrote a leisurely chronicle of a summer's boating holiday on the Thames. It was published in 1889 when he was only thirty years old. It was a success as a popular humorous book and has remained in print to this day. While some of the book is pure farce his main approach to humor was understatement and outrageous exaggeration in a style that reminds one of some of Twain's comic writings. He described his technique thus:"Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing: but this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless; the veriest tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, the embellishing touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous---almost pedantic---veracity, that the experienced angler is seen."His humor relies on the diabolic malice of inanimate objects when they escape from civilization: of the infrangibility of cans when the can opener has been left behind, the ingenuity of an untended rope, the cunning of kettles and leaking kerosene. His narrator is known simply as J. while his companions are Harris and George (though they are somewhat shadowy characters) and of course there is Montmorency, the dog."To look at Montmorency you would imagine that he was an angel sent upon the earth, for some reason withheld from mankind, in the shape of a small fox-terrier. There is a sort of Oh-what-a-wicked-world-this-is-and-how-I-wish-I-could-do-something-to-make-it-better-and -nobler expression about Montmorency that has been known to bring tears into the eyes of pious old ladies and gentlemen."With a convivial narrator and two friends, to say nothing of the dog, this tale of a boat trip is simply one of the funniest and most delightful short books that I have ever read.

[valzi-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fun, funny, and short! The claims that the book has too much purple prose is true.

[rontyler-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a complete little gem this is! A quick read, only 100 pages, but I laughed from beginning to end. I was needing something funny to read, and this quickie really worked. Recommended!

[hanno_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A nice, short, witty book. It's not a very funny book, IMO, but it's worth a quick read and some quotes are to be remembered."People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained."

[a.godhelm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hugh Laurie is the perfect voice for this book with characters straight out of Jeeves & Wooster. Short but charmingly delightful.

[judygibson-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Always humorous.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog last year. That book uses this classic as a backdrop but I had not read it so I determined to remedy that as soon as possible. When I saw a copy in my local USB for only $2.00 I knew I had to get it.

Supposedly this book is based upon a real journey the author, two friends and a dog took in a boat up the Thames in 1888. I don't want to libel a man who is long dead but I do suspect that some of the incidents were imagined or at least hyperbolic. Nevertheless the story is a good view of life in Victorian England when people were not in such a hurry and the idea of spending two weeks going from London to Oxford and back was one way to spend a vacation. Jerome has that dry wit that one only seems to find in the English and it often caught me by surprise. On the other hand he can describe scenes of nature handily and he sometimes even dips into social commentary. He also delves into the history of places encountered along the way which is quite illuminating. Here is a little example from Chapter 16:
In later years, Reading seems to have been regarded as a handy place to run down to, when matters were becoming unpleasant in London. Parliament generally rushed off to Reading whenever there was a plague on at Westminster; and, in 1625, the Law followed suit, and all the courts were held at Reading. It must have been worth while having a mere ordinary plague now and then in London to get rid of both the lawyers and the Parliament.

[mickyfine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The classic tale of three young men who decide to take a respite from their lives and spend two weeks rowing up the river Thames.

I knew this was a comic novel but I wasn't quite prepared for just how often this book would have me laughing out loud. The many asides our narrator gives on his previous boating experiences, the locales that surround him, and the adventures that he and his two friends as well as his dog get up to had me giggling loudly both at home and in public. Probably best read if you've had some other experience with Victorian literature but highly recommended if you haven't picked this one up already.

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There are loads of reviews on this work, so this is only to say, I loved this book. It is one I will be seeking in hardcover so that I may read it again. I had the ebook version, and although the story was still wonderful, the illustrations were tiny. I need to hold this book, flip the pages back and forth, reread passages, underline some of them and make notes in the margins. I want to have a relationship with it and I can't do that with an ebook. There are not many books I feel that way about.
This one had me laughing out-loud frequently. Not hysterical laughing, but amused laughing. Much of it felt modern, but certain passages made the reader aware of the times the book was written in. I took my time reading this, because I wanted to appreciate it. It is farce, comedy, poetic, philosophical, and retrospective. Good, clean fun. The only thing which could make it better for me, is if I had been on a boating trip on the Thames, but the author describes it in such a way, that I feel I have been.

[breic-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Light, amusing and occasionally brilliantly written (I'm a sucker for alliteration). Full of digressions, each of which is just about precisely the right length.

> I do think that, of all the silly, irritating tomfoolishness by which we are plagued, this “weather-forecast” fraud is about the most aggravating. It “forecasts” precisely what happened yesterday or a the day before, and precisely the opposite of what is going to happen today. … But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.

> We had just commenced the third course—the bread and jam—when a gentleman in shirtsleeves and a short pipe came along, and wanted to know if we knew that we were trespassing. We said we hadn’t given the matter sufficient consideration as yet to enable us to arrive at a definite conclusion on that point, but that, if he assured us on his word as a gentleman that we were trespassing, we would, without further hesitation, believe it. He gave us the required assurance, and we thanked him, but he still hung about, and seemed to be dissatisfied, so we asked him if there was anything further that we could do for him; and Harris, who is of a chummy disposition, offered him a bit of bread and jam.…

> It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart. You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become a passion with me: my study is so full of it now, that there is hardly an inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw out a wing soon. And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn’t a fingermark on it.

> The river—with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets, gilding gold the grey-green beech-trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood paths, chasing shadows o’er the shallows, flinging diamonds from the mill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies, wantoning with the weirs’ white waters, silvering moss-grown walls and bridges, brightening every tiny townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow, lying tangled in the rushes, peeping, laughing, from each inlet, gleaming gay on many a far sail, making soft the air with glory—is a golden fairy stream.

> But the river—chill and weary, with the ceaseless raindrops falling on its brown and sluggish waters, with a sound as of a woman, weeping low in some dark chamber; while the woods, all dark and silent, shrouded in their mists of vapour, stand like ghosts upon the margin; silent ghosts with eyes reproachful, like the ghosts of evil actions, like the ghosts of friends neglected—is a spirit-haunted water through the land of vain regrets.

[fred_mouse · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Three Men in a Boat is exactly what it says on the cover -- a travelogue of three young men, plus the terror dog Montmorency, going boating on the Thames for a fortnight. Interspersed with stories from other boating holidays, stories closely or tenuously linked to the river or the towns passed through, and the odd Reflection on Life, this is a slow moving, poetical, and frequently comical ramble.

Unlike many 'classics of English literature', which this book is advertised as on the back cover, this is not a horrid story about horrid people. I don't think that George, Harris, or the narrator would be people I would want to spend much time with, but they do appear to have a friendship that holds together despite the frustrations of their time together.

[siok-76276 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I think I really don't like stories to do with a boat much. Life of Pi and The Old Man and The Sea all took place on a boat and they were dreary at times. Three Men in a Boat follows a formula. At the places they passed, the narrator would give a history of these places or he would be triggered into narrating some past events. It would really be very uninteresting if there were not passages of beauty interspersed in the story, such as the one on night and its restorative power.

[jbarr5 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Three Men in a Boat (Xist Classics)
Story of three men and how they plan to camp out while traveling around in a boat.
So many things can go wrong and so do and how they deal with it.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome was originally published in 1889, and is a humorous account of a boating trip taken on the Thames over a two week period and although it was published more than 100 years ago, the humor remains fresh today.

The three men, Jerome and his friends Harris and George, accompanied by Montmorency, a fox terrier, embark upon their boat trip in order to cure themselves of various fancied ills. As they travel along, the author mentions all the villages that they pass and I found myself looking up these places on a map and checking the computer for pictures of the area. But the travelogue part of the book is definitely overshadowed by the humor and musings on life.

Through his random anecdotes, the reader gets a clear (and funny) idea of what life was like for the author in the late 1880’s. With dry wit and sarcastic humor, excellent character sketches and a dog that one can’t help but fall in love with, Three Men In A Boat was a great read.

[bridgey_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome **


I was given this book by a friend as they had tried to read it but struggled to finish. It’s always been one of those books I meant to read and it has been sat on my list of novels to tick off for a number or years. Published in 1889, I expected the language to be a bit dated but thought that it must have something going for it to have stood the last 125 years and still be in print. Supposedly Jerome started writing this novel as a travel guide but it turned into a ‘humorous novel’ somewhere along the way.

What is it about?

Basically the title is exactly what we find between the covers, three friends (and a dog) for no particular reason other than ‘overwork’, make a decision to hire a boat and go for a trip upon the Thames. The prose contains descriptions of their surroundings and events, alternating with numerous anecdotes about the writer’s experiences and thoughts on the world around him.


What did I like?

Tricky one... I suppose that the novel allows the reader a glimpse into the time of when it was written, although it could hardly be called a ‘rounded’ view. The characters are very much like the character ‘Bertie Wooster’, a bit lazy, thick and spoilt, and I doubt the majority of the population thought too much about how difficult bagpipes are to learn. At times the comedy elements struck a note with me, such as the hopelessness of the putting up of the tent (who hasn’t been in that situation?). The other credit I can give Jerome is that when he wants to he can actually write really beautiful prose:
"And the red sunset threw a mystic light upon the waters, and tinged with fire the towering woods, and made a golden glory of the piled up clouds. It was an hour of deep enchantment, of ecstatic hope and longing."


What didn’t I like?

I know I am in the minority here, but, well, most of it. I found the characters boring and annoying, the plot tedious and the multiple tangents the author takes pointless and adding nothing to the overall tale. I’m all for breaking up a plot but not every few pages. I decided to read the book as primarily a comedy, and have read other books from the same period that have hit the spot, this unfortunately didn’t. At the beginning of each chapter there are several bullet points detailing what is going to be covered (why these are there I don’t know) and I could have honestly read only these and given the book the same score.


Would I recommend?

Not really, and only if you are looking for a piece of work that can act as a social commentary for the late Edwardian period. I have read the multiple reviews on Amazon where people state that they have cried with laughter whilst reading Three Men and a Boat, and it was recently voted the second best comedy novel of all time, so the fault is likely with me. Where others have had to put the book aside from being overcome with humour, I have put aside to stop myself from throwing it in the bin.

[libbromus · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained"

This book had me in tears of riotous laughter. I had to keep tissue handy to dab away the water from my eyes and muffle my hysterical giggling. If you have ever been sailing, rowing, fishing, camping, owned by an ornery dog, packed for a trip or vacationed with friends you will heartily appreciate the humor herein.

"One of them rubbed the cushion with the forefinger of her glove, and showed the result to the other, and they both sighed, and sat down, with the air of early Christian martyrs trying to make themselves comfortable up against the stake."

And yet, this book is also full of profoundly beautiful observations of nature:
"And the red sunset threw a mystic light upon the waters, and tinged with fire the towering woods, and made a golden glory of the piled up clouds. It was an hour of deep enchantment, of ecstatic hope and longing."

And of mankind (well Englishman, at any rate):
"After a cup of tea (two spoonsful for each cup and don't let it stand more than three minutes), it says to the brain, "Now, rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature and into life; spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!"

Really one of the most remarkable little books I've ever enjoyed.

[juva_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Silly and entertaining.

[edgeworth_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Three Men In A Boat is a humourous novel from the 1880s detailing the trip that three young, wealthy, Wooster-style gadabouts take from London to Oxford, up the Thames by rowing skiff. The novel is actually based on Jerome’s honeymoon, I believe, with his wife replaced by two friends to make the novel more amusing. It’s a perennial classic which has never been out of print, and it’s easy to see why. Jerome has a surprisingly modern writing style, and the book feels undated to the point where the appearance of horse-drawn carts feels anachronous. It also never stopped feeling odd when Jerome would compare the peacefulness of bygone eras with the hustling, bustling modern world of “the 19th century.”

It reminded me, inevitably, of the shaggy dog story travelogues of Mark Twain, though Jerome is far more readable than Twain. They follow the same sort of style – firmly tongue-in-cheek, constantly diverted by anecdotes, and with the strong sense that neither man would let the truth get in the way of a good story (although Jerome at least classified his as fiction). It’s not without its flaws – certainly some of the amusing stories can become long-winded and unfunny, as was the style at the time, and the humour is curiously interspersed with patches of sentimental writing in which Jerome genuinely appreciates the beauty of the Thames. Nonetheless, Three Men In A Boat is a short and pleasant novel which remains one of the more accessible pieces of writing from the 19th century.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A true classic that transcends the passage of time.

Despite being written in 1899 and not being particularly well received by the critics of the day this book has never been out of print and that is because it has a timeless quality. This could have been a simple travelogue but is so much more.There is no plot as such but is a series of anecdotes and witticisms as the author himself,J, and two friends,all self confessed hypochondriacs, and a dog take a boat trip up the Thames. The writing style,language and pace is both gentle and simple. The author starts telling an anecdote and then just keeps on exaggerating it with hilarious results. The tale about the cheese and the hunt for a train at Waterloo station literally had me in tears with laughter and I read virtually every page with a smile on my face. Whats more many of the observations still ring true today.

Why oh why did I take so long to read this book? It is a gem and a real joy. If you want to read a 'classic' then this is an easy as well as fun place to start.

[schant-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enduringly hilarious.

[la2bkk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An account of three friends as they traveled down the Thames River in 19th century England. Generally, the first half of this short work contained sections that were witty, charming and sometimes very funny. Unfortunately, the second half of the book tended to read more like a bland travel guide.

A good, but not great, read.

[pitcherbooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ostensibly a travelogue for river travel on the Thames written in 1889. If all travelogues were written like this, I swear I'd read them all!

A boat holiday memoir by Jerome, he ranges from laugh-out-loud funny (as when he describes his & his buddies' rampant hypochondria and thus their need for a holiday) to some lovely poetic prose as he describes the beauty & serenity of the river to downright educational (but only in the brief, non-painful, sometimes funny but usually interesting history of the sites one will pass along the river).

I totally adored Jerome's dry wit and humorous tongue-in-cheek delivery throughout. I'm ready to take the same river trip myself with his book in hand.

I've just downloaded the sequel, Three Men on the Bummel, and am torn between reading it immediately or delaying so to allow anticipation to build thus savoring it the more!

[toobusyreading · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

(To say nothing of the dog.) This 1889 story is timeless, a true classic. While some classics, while quite deserving of the label and wonderful literature, can be a bit serious about themselves. This one is absolutely hilarious.

The characters are quick to see the flaws in others while not seeing the same flaws in themselves, not unusual but rarely described as humorously. They are simply dolts. Even the hapless dog, along for the ride, has his moments.

There is one very offensive and unnecessary use of the n-word, but given the time when this was written, that is not too surprising.

[whitreidtan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have long had this book sitting on my shelf. Actually, it's been sitting on the "recommended for a laugh" shelf for years now. And I scraped a price tag off of it that tells me I bought it way back in 2001. So for an appallingly long time, I haven't touched a book that came highly recommended, about which I occasionally hear very positive things even from people not inclined to read a whole lot. I don't know whether I was afraid it wouldn't live up to everything I'd heard or what exactly had slowed me down from reading it, but I have to say to anyone else out there with Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat sitting neglected on a shelf: take it down and settle in to a very enjoyable read, one that will make you smile and chuckle and even break out into a full fledged laugh that will make others in public look at you strangely and move their seats as far from you as possible.


Written in 1889, this novel is an hilarious travel narrative peppered with small amounts of English history. Jerome, two of his equally hypochondriac friends, and Montmorency, a fox terrier, decide to scull up the river Thames for a fortnight. They are looking for a bit of a rest from their apparently strenuous lives, lives the reader soon discovers are mostly indolent and non-taxing in the extreme. The fresh air will certainly cure them of their imagined ills. And so they head off on their boating holiday. As they row upriver, Jerome takes the opportunity to tell brief bits of important (and sometimes not so important) history that occurred in the towns on the banks of the river. But in and amongst these serious pieces of information, he also chronicles the misadventures of their inept, bumbling, and lackadaisical trio using the sort of ascerbic and dry wit that is a hallmark of a certain kind of British humor. From J., George, and Harris's slapstick occurrences on this present trip to flashbacks of previous trips and completely tangential but hysterically funny stories (I defy you to read about the stinky cheese without worrying you're going to wet your pants laughing), the tale is entertaining and, despite its age, completely accessible. The three main characters are irritable and crotchety, averse to hard work, goofy, and yet incredibly adroit at telling appealing and laugh-inducing tall tales. Their teasing and good natured interactions with each other, despite all the bollocksing up they do is delightful and the humor is ultimately self-effacing, gentle, and wonderful. The book, designed to be a travelogue rather than a plot-driven read, is pleasant, funny, and marvelous and now that I know what a small gem I have on my shelf, I fully intend to take it down and enjoy it again and again.

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read that Jerome K. Jerome didn't intend Three Men In A Boat to be a humorous tale, but his editor took out all the serious parts. I don't know how happy Jerome was about that, but I have to say I'm quite pleased.

Three Men In A Boat is one of the funniest books I've ever read. It's so clever and so witty and so -fun-! I will have to read it about ten million more times so I can quote every single line when the occasion arrises.

[ljbwell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Written in the late 19th century, Three Men is the comic fictionalised tale of the author's boating journey along the Thames. He travels with 2 friends and Montmorency, a rather feisty terrier. The three talk, muse, bicker, reminisce, and occasionally even get some boating in.

There are a couple awkward spots where something more serious happens - awkward in that they don't fit with the generally lighter tone of the book. That, though, is offset by a wealth of humorous observations and incidents, tall tales, mishaps, and various encounters both on water and on land.

The book, like the trip described, meanders pleasantly along, not always going somewhere directly, not always getting where it perhaps planned to be, but in the end leaving the journeyer happy they went along for the ride.

[carltonc_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a joyful book.
Not at all what I expected, as although humourous, it is written in a "shaggy dog" story style, with reminiscences, recollections and imagined historical retellings of history (especially at Runnymede with the Magna Carta).
This is a travel book about a boat trip up the Thames from Richmond to Oxford.
The boat is either rowed by two of the three men or pulled along. It is a fascinating story, which I imagine is half based on fact.
A delightful sunny book (although it does rain on the return trip, which realistically hastens their return to London).
It was strange to read references to the nineteenth century as modernity.

I read a beautifully illustrated Folio Society edition, well worth getting as the numerous pictures perfectly capture the mood.

[cecilturtle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Jerome takes us on a quaint little adventure through the British countryside. This book is lovely as it describes tongue-in-cheek the sites of the Thames as well as the historical trivia of various villages. From a modern perspective, it also gives interesting insight on the mores and habits of the day (most specifically young men!).
Humour is always tricky: what will make some laugh will puzzle another. Whereas I found the comedy funny at first, I became bored with it later on: the same mechanisms were always at work, namely exaggeration, and it became tiresome. Although this book is short, I would have enjoyed it yet shorter or with a bit more variety.

[csaavedra_894108 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Either my English is not good enough or you ought to be British to understand the humor in this book, but I can't see why it is such a classic. Besides a few good stories that made me laugh and some beautifully written paragraphs, I didn't find this book to be up to its fame.

I'll probably have a hard time starting "Three Men on the Bummel" after this disappointment.

[thedivineoomba · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A lovely little rambling story about a trip three friends took down the Thames in a boat... You find out about the authors views on Steamboats (Both For and Against, depending on situation), his view of how work is divided up, and all sort of other things that is works well in today's world. Interspersed between the witty insights of human nature, there is a less enjoyable description of the towns and land that Jerome K. Jerome is boating through. These tend to be rather annoying. If the book didn't include these, it would be a 4.5 star book.

My one big complaint is the description of the boat... being from the Land of 1000 lakes, I really couldn't visualize it, even after Googling it :) Since a portion of the book describes the process of pulling, towing, and sailing this boat, I was a bit lost.