Three Men in a Boat
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| Author | Jerome K. Jerome |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Comedy novel |
| Publisher | J. W. Arrowsmith |
| Publication date | 1889 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7653-4161-1 |
| Followed by | Three Men on the Bummel |
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford.
The book was intended initially to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history of places along the route, but the humorous elements eventually took over, to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages now seem like an unnecessary distraction to the essentially comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers. The jokes seem fresh and witty even today.
The three men were based on (the un-named narrator), Jerome himself and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who went on to become a senior manager in Barclays Bank) and Harris, who was in reality Carl Hentschel. The dog, Montmorency, however, was entirely fictional, but, as Jerome had remarked, "had much of me in it." The holiday was a typical boating holiday of the time, carried out in a Thames Camping Skiff.
There was a less successful sequel, about a cycling tour in Europe, entitled Three Men on the Bummel.
The Thames trip was re-created in 1933 by William Austin, Edmund Breon, and Billy Milton; in 1956 by Laurence Harvey, Jimmy Edwards, and David Tomlinson; in 1975 by Tim Curry, Michael Palin, and Stephen Moore; in 1993 by poet Kim Taplin and companions, resulting in the travelogue Three Women in a Boat (ISBN 1-874687-13-7); and in 2005 by comedians Griff Rhys Jones, Dara O'Briain and Rory McGrath, and a very nervous dog called Loli, for the BBC.
A similar book was published seven years before Jerome's work, entitled Three in Norway (by two of them) by J. A. Lees and W. J. Clutterbuck. It tells the story of three men on an expedition into the wild Jotunheimen in Norway. The similarities between the two books are striking.
Memorable quotes
- The opening words: "There were four of us".
- "I like work. It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."
- "George goes to sleep in a bank from ten till four each day except Saturdays, when they wake him up and put him outside at 2."
- "When George is hanged, Harris will be the worst packer in this world…"
- "How good one feels when one is full – how satisfied with ourselves and with the world! 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. One feels so forgiving and generous after a substantial and well-digested meal – so noble-minded, so kindly-hearted."
Plot summary
The story kicks off with Jerome introducing the four characters — George, Harris, Montmorency, and himself, and what hypochondriacs they all are, bar the dog. They feel that they are overworked and need a complete change in scene. They decide on a rowing trip up the river Thames.
First, they settle their sleeping arrangements. George makes the most sensible remark of the whole story when he tells Harris and Jerome “We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can’t do without” while they are deciding what to pack. They discuss the food items to take, somehow manage to finish packing, and fall asleep.
They wake up late the next morning. Having arranged to pick up George later, Jerome and Harris make their way to Kingston, collect the rowing boat, and embark upon their journey. They are quietly engrossed in their own thoughts until Harris realizes that he cannot see Mrs Thomas’s Tomb because they have to pick up George, at which point he throws a fit.
They lunch and find that they are trespassing. Then they pick up George, who has bought a banjo. He is introduced to work by having to untangle the towline. They decide to sleep on board that night.
They manage to put up the canvas after which they eat a hearty, long-awaited supper, which cheers them up for the rest of the night — even Montmorency doesn’t try being a nuisance. George actually wakes up early the next day. Jerome has a spine-chilling bath and drops George’s shirt into the water. Harris tries to cook scrambled eggs on board but fails.
They lunch a little below Monkey Island during which they wanted mustard but did not get any. They fail to open a tin of pineapples. They sail to Marlow and replenish their food. Montmorency almost fights with a tom cat. During lunch (not at Marlow), Harris disappears while carving a pie. For dinner, George makes an Irish stew and while the tea kettle is boiling, Montmorency picks up a fight with it, only to lose. Jerome and George almost get lost when returning from a long walk.
The next day they decide who does what work when. Harris and George force Jerome to do extra work. George finds a dead body in the water. They get their clothes washed at Streatley. George breaks a giant trout made of plaster of Paris. They continue up-river to Oxford.
They spend two days at Oxford, where Montmorency becomes himself again and has 25 fights. Jerome and Harris lose two-pence each to George. After leaving Oxford, they desert their boat at Pangbourne, mainly because of the terrible weather, and end their river trip two days early.
Memorable incidents
- Jerome in the British Museum – Chapter 1
- Pitching a tent in rainy weather – Chapter 2
- Uncle Podger hangs a painting – Chapter 3
- Smelly cheese – Chapter 4
- George and Harris pack – Chapter 4
- Jerome’s opinion and story related to weather forecasts – Chapter 5
- Harris in the Hampton Court maze – Chapter 6
- Jerome avoiding a keeper at a tomb – Chapter 7
- Harris sings a comic song – Chapter 8
- The mystery of Wallingford lock – Chapter 9
- George’s father and his friend at the ‘Pig and Whistle’ – Chapter 10
- A badly behaved fox-terrier – Chapter 13
- A rat in the Irish stew? – Chapter 14
- A fishy story – Chapter 17
See also
- To Say Nothing of the Dog
- Locks on the River Thames - by "joining" the river at Teddington Lock, and following the succession boxes upstream, it is possible to follow the journey over each reach.
Other meanings
Among US troops in Iraq, "Three Men in a Boat" is slang for "stop", because of the shape of the Arabic word قف for "stop!": see List of U.S. Army acronyms and expressions#Field slang.
External links
- ISBN 0-14-062133-4 (Penguin Classics edition)
- Three Men in a Boat, available at Project Gutenberg.
- An illustrated HTML version based on the second (1909) British edition
- Alternate html version
- IMDb Search
- 2005 version — David Gilmour as a special guest on Google Video
- Fly the journey yourself along the Thames, using Google Earth
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