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  • Published: 12 June 2012
  • ISBN: 9780241956823
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $26.00

Three Men in a Boat




New edition of the Penguin Essential of what is probably the worst holiday in literature

'Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.'

Suffering from every malady in the book except housemaid's knee, three men and a dog decide to head for a restful vacation on the Thames. Anticipating peace and leisure, they encounter, in fact, the joys of roughing it, of getting their boat stuck in locks, of being towed by amateurs, of having to eat their own cooking and, of course, of coping with the glorious English weather.

  • Published: 12 June 2012
  • ISBN: 9780241956823
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $26.00

Other books in the series

On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the authors

Jerome K Jerome

George and Weedon Grossmith were born in London in 1847 and 1852 respectively to a theatrical family who were friends with Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. George became a popular composer and performer of comic songs as well as a successful actor. Weedon trained as a painter at the Slade and the Royal Academy, but soon turned to acting like his brother. The Diary of a Nobody began life as a series of columns the brothers wrote together for Punch which they later expanded into a novel. It was published in 1892, with Weedon's illustrations, to instant acclaim and has remained in print ever since. George died in 1912, followed by his brother in 1919.

Jerome Klapka Jerome was born in Walsall on 2 May 1859 and brought up in East London. After his father died, Jerome left school at fourteen and worked as a railway clerk, actor, journalist and teacher. In 1885 he published On the Stage - and Off which was followed in 1886 by Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. In 1888 Jerome married Georgina Stanley and a year later he published his most famous work, Three Men in a Boat. The sequel, Three Men on the Bummel, appeared in 1900. Jerome also wrote several other novels, plays, stories and autobiographical writings, edited The Idler and Today magazines and, during the First World War, worked for the French ambulance service. Jerome K. Jerome died on 14 June 1927.

Vic Reeves

Vic Reeves is one of the UK's most popular comedians. His TV successes with Bob Mortimer have included Vic Reeves Big Night Out, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, Shooting Stars and Families at War.

Praise for Three Men in a Boat

I fell out of bed laughing