Three Men in a Boat

'Three Men in a Boat' relates the adventures and mishaps of three late-Victorian gentlemen and a dog on holiday on the Thames. With its picaresque digressions and asides, Jerome depicts the group's attempts to keep themselves afloat and cope with the English weather.Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a T'. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.'s small fox-terrier Montmorency. Three Men in a Boat was an instant success when it appeared in 1889, and, with its benign escapism, authorial discursions and wonderful evocation of the late-Victorian clerking classes', it hilariously captured the spirit of its age.