Three Men in a Boat by Jerome — a book for the night: the opening, the author and a Thames trail

After a week of dark books, an evening when you want to laugh out loud. «Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)» by Jerome K. Jerome (1889) is the kindest English comedy there is: three friends, convinced they are overworked and about to fall ill, take a boat up the Thames from Kingston. The plan is to rest; what they get is a chain of small disasters—the tent won’t go up, a shirt goes into the river, a tin of pineapple refuses to open, and the dog Montmorency wages war on everything that moves. The book was meant as a serious river guide, but the comic digressions took over—and the result is a thing loved in Russia, it sometimes seems, even more than at home. The perfect evening to breathe out.

The opening lines

The book opens by introducing its cast: «There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency.» A little later in the same first chapter the narrator, leafing through a medical dictionary, finds he has every disease in it—bar one: the only complaint he has not got, he decides, is housemaid’s knee. On that confession the book’s whole English humour rests. The full English text is free and legal at Project Gutenberg, eBook #308.

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Why read it tonight

«Three Men in a Boat» makes you laugh not with gags but with recognition: Jerome was the first to make the hero of a comedy an ordinary town-dweller who puts on airs, is lazy, exaggerates his ailments and firmly believes that he, at least, knows how to row, pitch a tent and read the weather. The real hero of the book is the Thames itself—its locks, backwaters, riverside pubs and little towns, which Jerome describes with unexpected tenderness between two jokes. It is a book you can open at any chapter and read for five minutes before sleep without losing the thread. The first chapter—about fifteen minutes—is entirely about three healthy men convincing one another that they are mortally ill and in urgent need of a rest.

About the author

Jerome Klapka Jerome was born on 2 May 1859 in Walsall and died on 14 June 1927 in Northampton—more than seventy years ago, which is why his text is now in the public domain. He tried everything: railway clerk, travelling actor, schoolmaster and journalist, until he made his name with «Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow» (1886). «Three Men in a Boat» grew out of a real Thames trip Jerome took with two friends—George Wingrave and Carl Hentschel, who became George and Harris; the dog Montmorency, the author admitted, was invented. Jerome’s ashes rest in the churchyard of St Mary’s at Ewelme, Oxfordshire.

Places to visit

The heroes’ route is a real stretch of the Thames, and you can walk it today.

Kingston upon Thames (south-west London) is where the three put their boat on the water. The riverside by Kingston Bridge is open and free; direct trains run from London Waterloo, and boats are still hired on this reach of the Thames.

Hampton Court Palace and its maze (East Molesey, Surrey KT8 9AU). The famous chapter in which Harris leads a whole party into the hedge maze and cannot get them out is set right here—the maze is real and still open. The palace runs through winter (palace and maze by ticket; for current hours and prices see hrp.org.uk; the gardens are free on 21 and 22 November 2026). The palace stands on the very river the heroes row past.

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Ewelme (Oxfordshire) is a village higher up the Thames where Jerome himself is buried, in the churchyard of St Mary’s. Entry is free; it is a quiet stop at the end of the trail, fitting for the end of the heroes’ river journey.

Where to get it

Free. The full English text is in the public domain: Project Gutenberg, eBook #308. To find it in British libraries, use the Library Hub Discover catalogue.

Buy in Russian. «Three Men in a Boat» is a staple classic and easy to find; search for «Трое в лодке» at the Russian bookshops in Britain—Notre Locus and Bookashka. We don’t pin stock or price here—check the shop’s site; an English paperback is carried by ordinary British bookshops too.