2. Quick Facts
• Full Name: Jerome Klapka Jerome
• Nationality: British
• Occupation: Editor, Journalist, Author, Playwright
• Date of Birth: May 2nd 1859
• Date of Death: June 14th 1927 (68 years)
• Place of Birth: Cladmore, Walsall, England
• Place of Death: Northampton, England
5. Father: Jerome Clapp Jerome
Occupation: Architect & Congregationalist minister/ ironmonger
Mother: Marguerite Maine Jones
Occupation: Collected Inheritance
Married: 1842
Fourth Child
Sisters (2): Blandina & Plaulina
Brother (1): Milton- died at an early age (croup)
School: Saint Marylebone Grammar School in the City of Westminister
Family was poor due to father’s bad investments in the mining industry
Age 13: Father died
Age 15: Mother died
Dreamed of becoming a politician or a writer, but when his parents died he
was forced to work at London and Northwestern Railway (4 years)
6. Age 18: Acting: Inspired by sister,
Blandina
Stagename: Harold Crichton
Age 21: Journalist: Satires
Short Stories
Essays
Age 21-26: School teacher
Packer
Solicitors Clerk
Age 26/27: On the Stage- and Off
(humorous memoir of acting
days)
Idle thoughts of an Idle
Fellow (humorous essays)
Age 29: Married Georgina Elizabeth
Henrietta Stanley Marris
(“Ettie”)
One daughter from her
previous marriage “Elsie”
Second daughter in 1898-
Rowena
7. Some short stories and comedic essays entered into:
“The Lamp” (Magazine)
“The Play” (Magazine)
Developing close friendships:
George Wingrave- Banker’s Clerk and roommate
Carl Henstschel- inventor of the Hentschel-Colourtype process media
printer
JM Barrie- Scottish Author and Dramatist, played cricket together (Peter
Pan)
8. Three Men in a Boat (book published 1889)
• Based on his honeymoon
• Wife replaced with old friends so story was more humorous
• Inspired by the Thames river in which the married couple went on a boat ride
• Book success increased popularity in the Thames region resulting in it
becoming a tourist attraction
• Sold 1 million copies worldwide
• Became successful in movies, TV shows, plays and one musical
9. Wrote many more plays, essays, and novels
None were as successful as Three Men in a Boat
1892-1898: Became the editor of “The Idle,” an illustrated monthly
magazine published in Great Britain
1898: Wrote Three Men on the Bummel – the sequel to Three Men in a
Boat ( not as successful)
1902: Published the novel Paul Kelver (Autobiography)
1908: Wrote a play titled The Passing of the Third Floor Back
10. • Attempted to join the British Army; rejected for age (56)
• Volunteered as an ambulance driver for the French Army
• 1926: Published an autobiography My Life and Times
• Borough of Walsall gave him the title “Freeman of the Borough”
• Spent his last years at his farmhouse in Ewelme, Oxfordshire
• June 1927: Jerome in a car accident. Suffered a cerebral
hemmorage that lasted two weeks until his death.
• Cremated and buried at St. Mary’s Church in Ewelme, Oxfordshire
11. On the Stage and Off: The Brief Career of a Would-Be Actor (1885, short stories)
The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886, short stories)
Three Men in a Boat (1889, travelogue)
The Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891, novel)
Told After Supper (1891, short stories)
Novel Notes (1893, novel)
John Ingerfield: And Other Stories (1894, short stories)
Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green (1895, short stories)
The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1898, novel)
Three Men on the Bummel (1900, novel)
The Observations of Henry (1901, short stories)
Paul Kelver, a novel (1902, novel)
Tommy and Co (1904, novel)
They and I (1909, novel)
The Angel and the Author and Others (1904, short stories)
American Wives and Others (1904, short stories)
Malvina of Brittany (1916, short stories)
All Roads Lead to Calvary (1919, novel)
Anthony John (1923, novel)
My Life and Times (1926, memoirs)
12. Summary:
A ghost story told by a man named Jephson, who heard the story from a
French doctor while he was at the hospital earlier that morning.
A story of two men, one who wronged the other, and how each of their
lives ended up playing out, or not, because of a consequently
adventurous chase.
Main characters: Jephson- story teller
A man of science (Monsier)- The man who had
done wrong- spurred by Fear
The man who followed him- spurred by Hate
