Three Men in a Boat

By Jerome K. Jerome

First published in 1889, “Three Men in a Boat” by Jerome K. Jerome is the humorous story of three Englishman who find themselves in need of a vacation and decide to take a holiday boating on the Thames. The three friends, Jerome (referred to as “J”), George, and Harris, pile into a boat with food, clothes, and a fox terrier named Montmorency, and set off from London to see the English countryside. “Three Men in a Boat” is a first-class comic masterpiece, as the well-to-do upper-class gentlemen are beset by a series of comic mishaps, including unreliable weather forecasts, culinary challenges, and troublesome tow ropes. A commercial success and instant classic when published, “Three Men in a Boat” has been translated into numerous languages and continues to inspire fans to embark on a recreation of the trio’s iconic boating trip, where they discover very little has changed in over a hundred years. Jerome K. Jerome's masterful tale is a hilarious critique of the self-centered behavior of the English upper classes typical of Victorian England and still continues to entertain and delight audiences until today. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Dec 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781420965704

Jerome K. Jerome

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) was an English writer who grew up in a poverty-stricken family. After multiple bad investments and the untimely deaths of both parents, the clan struggled to make ends meet. The young Jerome was forced to drop out of school and work to support himself. During his downtime, he enjoyed the theatre and joined a local repertory troupe. He branched out and began writing essays, satires and many short stories. One of his earliest successes was Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) but his most famous work is Three Men in a Boat (1889).

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THREE MEN IN A BOAT

TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG

By JEROME K. JEROME

Three Men in a Boat

By Jerome K. Jerome

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-6569-8

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-6570-4

This edition copyright © 2019. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: a detail of Three Men in a Boat, English School, (20th century) / © Look and Learn / Bridgeman Images.

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CONTENTS

Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

Chapter IX.

Chapter X.

Chapter XI.

Chapter XII.

Chapter XIII.

Chapter XIV.

Chapter XV.

Chapter XVI.

Chapter XVII.

Chapter XVIII.

Chapter XIX.

Biographical Afterword

Chapter I.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Reviews for Three Men in a Boat

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

Always humorous.

[juva_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Silly and entertaining.

[whatsmacksaid · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I didn't enjoy this, except in very small bursts. Most of the jokes didn't appeal to me, but I can easily see how others might find it funny. I'm very glad to be done reading it.

[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.

[auntie0nanuuq · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I understand completely why this was considered funny when it was published in London, August 1889.

Three Dandy's & their dog go on a boating trip down the Thames and make quite the mess of it.

The writing had a distinct air of pomposity to it (as those men must have been in those days) which might (still) be considered funny in particular circles, and I found that it fell quite flat.

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mildly enjoyable - I don't find this type of humor funny, but I do find it amusing. I liked the excursions into the history of places along the river - a relief from the rather strained funny bits. Most of the "contemporary" stories - stories the three men tell, about their own actions and events that befell themselves and their friends and relations - are boring or unpleasant (the trick about the German song is really nasty). But overall, it's not bad to read; not a favorite, and not a particularly humorous book, but interesting. I thought I'd read it before, but apparently not; there are several scenes I think I would have remembered.

[kaitanya64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Imagine Bertie Wooster and two pals and a fox terrier decide that to cure their general seediness and hypochondria, they will take a boat down the river Thames for a couple of weeks, camping out, cooking their own food and other wholesome entertainments. That is basically the tone and situation of this book. Laughed out loud at least once in every chapter.

[debbiemccauley-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A Victorian era collection of anecdotes about three impractical friends who decide a two-week boating holiday up the River Thames would be perfectly sublime. Little do these hypochondriacs suffering from 'overwork' take note of the practicalities involved. Along with fox-terrier Montmorency they wrestle with ropes, inclement weather, lack of a tin opener and other mishaps in this classic comedy. Fabulous to know that they were just as mad in 1889 as we are today!

[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.

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mild fun up the Thames. This book was originally commissioned as a travelogue but it does seem to have hung on remarkably well. It takes about two hours to read, but it is best taken in small bites. It was originally copyright in 1889.

[darthdeverell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) recounts a two-week boating holiday on the Thames from Kingston to Oxford and back again. The story focuses on George, Harris, Jerome, and Jerome’s dog, Montmorency, as they plan the trip and recount past stories in the course of their adventures. Jerome humorously muses on the nature of cheese, the habit of visiting tombs in picturesque villages, historical Thames islands like Magna Charta Island, their visitors such as Kings John and Henry VIII, the nature of Victorian-era flirting, the relationships of dogs, the methods of rowing, fish stories, and more. Though some of the situations Jerome describes are uniquely nineteenth-century, the wit of his writing will entertain readers over a hundred years later. This Folio Society edition reprints the original 1889 text with illustrations from Paul Cox that capture the humor of Jerome’s text.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[datrappert · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a gentle, fitfully humorous book about three men and a dog taking a boat trip up the Thames from London (and back). It is full of humorous digressions, a couple of which will make you chuckle a bit. Mostly, however, these episodes just serve to show that human nature hasn't changed since 1889 when this was written. There are also poetic passages extolling the landscape as well as factual passages about particular places. I found myself turning to the Internet again and again to look things up--and it doesn't appear much has changed. You could, in fact, still use this as a travel guide for such a journey. And despite the mishaps portrayed, you'll want to go.

[liivin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Timeless humor. Very easy to read.

[meredy_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

After two long, heavy reads, I took a very light digression with Three Men in a Boat. It's a stylish but largely frivolous and frequently slapstick 19th-century travelogue covering about a 50-mile stretch of the River Thames from Kingston to Oxford. I'd call it amusing but by no means hilarious and can't really see how this book acquired its reputation.

[markalanlaidlaw · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

gentle witty book, should be on the regular re read rotunda.

[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.

[esquetee_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read this a long, long time ago and decided to read it again before revisiting the Connie Willis classic _To Say Nothing of the Dog _. Using an ebook version in the iPad Kindle app.

[benjclark · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You haven't read this yet? Do it. Witty, funny, very enjoyable. If you're a fan of British humor (or humour), you'll enjoy this book.

[judithproctor · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Still as funny as when I first read it 25 years ago. One of very few books that genuinely makes me laugh out loud.

[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.

[ashishg_50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you'd imagined Victorian era classic would be un-relatable to reader of 21st century, you'd be very wrong. Three Men in a Boat is immensely funny, laugh out loud humourous book of three extremely lazy and good for nothing men's journey along the river. Narrative is characterized by expansive digressions which feel all too familiar. It's salute to author's writing (not at all difficult to read) or human nature, that what was funny 100 years ago is still the same today. Recommended read among humour books.

[phoebesmum · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A much-loved and often reread classic. It’s one of the books that everyone – yes, everyone, you too – should read before they die.

[wrichard_22 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The funniest travel book you could find

[malrubius · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hilarious, and well-written in a tongue-in-cheek way. Laughed out loud several times.

[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.

[e5j · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved Jerome's sense of humor. I also loved the "once-upon-a-timeyfied" quality. Overall though Montmorency was my most very favorite part of this book. I could have used a little more of him.

[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.