Three Men on the Bummel [antikvár]

Jerome Klapka Jerome (185^-1927). Best known for his timeless comic növel Three Men in a Boát, Jerome was a popular fígure whose long and varied career encompassed London's theatrical and literary scenes. Jerome was born in Walsall in 1859, the son of an unsuccessful ironmonger and evangelical preacher. He gained his unusual second name from an exiled Hungárián generál with whom his father was acquainted. The family moved to London's East End when Jerome was quite young and he attended Marylebone GrammarSchool. When he was fourteen he left school to become a railway clerk, the first in a long line of jobs that included acting, teaching and journalism. He spent somé time touring with various theatrical companies, and he lodged for a while in Tavistock Place in London with his friend George Wingrave (who later became the model for George in Three Men in a Boát). His first book, On Stage and Off, is a collection of humorous pieces about the theatre which was very weil received on its publication in 1885, He followed this with a series of sketches entitled The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow in 1886, and its success enticed Jerome to take up writing and journalism ás a profession. He married in 1888 and settled the following year in Chelsea Gardpns in London, where he wrote his most famous work, Three Men in a Boát. Working from his 'little circular drawing-room', he commanded beautiful views of the River Thames and of the Surrey hills beyond. A sequel to Three Men in a Boát, entitled Three Men on the Bűmmel, appeared in 1900 and telis of a hilarious cycling tour through Germany's Black Forest. In 1892 Jerome founded The Idler together with somé friends. This illustrated monthly magaziné gained a reputation for publishing humorous work and in its time published pieces by Róbert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain and fellow American Bret Harte. When the paper földed Jerome turnéd once more to the theatre and became weil known as a playwright. His play The Passing