Jerome K. Jerome

Jerome K. Jerome is now best known as the author of the hilarious "Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog". But he was more than just a one-hit wonder: he was the author of more than thirty books, including novels, short stories, essays and plays, as well as the founder and editor of two literary magazines. He counted J. M. Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells and Rudyard Kipling amongst his friends: quite an achievement for someone who had grown up in poverty and whose first job had been picking up the coal that fell off railway trucks. Joseph Connolly's masterful biography not only recounts the fascinating story of Jerome's life, but also analyses his literary output, from "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" to "My Life and Times", his autobiography, and was the first book to examine both.