THE LITERARY LIFE AND WORKS OF JEROME K. JEROME (1859-

1927)

“I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”-Jerome K. Jerome

Jerome’s Ambitions

English Literary Writer, Novelist, Actor, and Screenwriter Jerome K. Jerome once confided that he wanted to

accomplish four ambitions in his life. These ambitions were to do the following:

1. To edit a successful journal

2. To write a successful play,

3. To write a successful book

4. To become a member of English Parliament.

Out of all four of these ambitions, Jerome only accomplished three. He never made it to Parliament.

The Journey Starts Here… in Theatre

Jerome’s start into the Arts and Literature started as an actor inspired by his sister’s, Blandina, love of theatre in 1877.

He would begin his career with a repertory troupe that toured the country under the stage name of “Harold Critchon”.

With meager resources, he would also produce low budget plays.

He would work in the theatre for three years and then walk away at age 21.

On the Stage- and Off, The Brief Career of a Would Be Actor

After a succession of rejections from his attempts of satires, essays, and short stories… Jerome would make a successful return to

theatre.

Inspired by Longfellow’s poem “By The Fireside” (which curiously had the title of Gaspar Becerra). The poem would inspire Jerome to write a play based off his acting experiences.

The play, entitled “On the Stage- and Off, The Brief Career of a Would Be Actor” would be a success in two ways, both Theatrically and Literary.

THE SUCCESS OF ON THE STAGE Along with being an Acting success, the play

would receive critically acclaim from a magazine named, The Play.

In 1885, the play would be placed in Book form.

According to a Society established in his name years after his death, the Jerome K. Jerome Society, it is still “one of the most detailed, absorbing (and under-rated) portraits of late-Victorian theatre life.”

IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW

After the success of On The Stage…, Jerome would follow up with a collection of essays entitled, “Idle Thoughts of

an Idle Fellow”. Described by Robert Wringham, a writer from HiBrow.com, he says about this work:

(The Book is) “a collection of gentle and naughty essays on the subject of idling and related topics (including love,

melancholia, poverty, deportment, and aspiration – or rather one’s lack of it), is something of an inadvertent manifesto against today’s tiresome inclination toward workaholic and the general sense of tedium vitae that

comes with office life and daily commutes.”

“The Comic Masterpiece”

Shortly after returning from his honeymoon with his new wife, Georgina Elizabeth Henrietta Stanley Marris (Ettie), Jerome would begin work on his

comic masterpiece called, Three Men and a Boat, released in 1889.

It would become the book that would make him rich and famous. Jerome would use actual events and would based the characters on

himself and two of his close friends, George Wingrave and Carl Hentschel. (George, Harris, and J)

The book would chronicle the three’s adventures up and down the river Thames.

The success of the book would spawn a sequel in 1900 and would be the final appearance for the three in the book “Three Men on a Bummel” (Three Men on a Wheel in America).

Two Literary Publications Founded

• In 1892 and 1893, Jerome would help find two London Literary Publications. He would co-found the 1892 publication “The Idler” (with good friend and fellow humorist Robert Barr) and then the 1893 Co-Weekly “To-day”.

• Jerome, now well connected, teamed with such writers such as Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Rudyard Kipling.

•The publications would lampoon Victorian Values with Cartoons, Essays, and Anecdotal tales.

Finally… Success Achieved…

Five years after the 1902 publication of his autographical novel, Paul Kelver, Jerome’s success would finally pay off.

O He would be invited to do lectures across the United States and even Russia.

O He would then write the famous morality play, The Passing of the Third Floor Back, a play about a Christ-Like stranger’s visiting a rundown boarding house, changing the lives of the inhabitants, in 1907.

O The play would become successful only after people would become adjusted to Jerome’s style of delivery with his uncharacteristic moral tone.

JEROME’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

In 1926, Jerome would publish his autobiography, My Life and

Times, to which his society has remarked that it he would not go in

any chronological order and was frustratingly short on details,

however, it would contain some of the most vital points of

Jerome’s life.

KNIGHTHOOD AND DEATH

On February 17, 1927, he would go to Belsize, the place of his birth, to see a tablet grace the place of his birth and to be honored to receive the title of Freeman of the Borough of Walsall in the Town Hall, and given a dinner.

A few months later on June 14, 1927, he died in Northampton, England after suffering a series of strokes.

Closing…

Jerome K. Jerome, as said earlier, wanted to accomplish four ambitions. Now, as seen, he never made it to

British Parliament, but he did have a success at the other three. His Autobiography My Life and Times, His

successful play The Passing of the Third Floor Back, and his novel and masterpiece, Three Men and a Boat

lived to be extremely successful.