three Men in a Boat

Three young men get bored of their routine lives, and convince themselves that they have been overworked and are suffering from some manner of illness. After considering a country escape and a sea trip, they decide to settle for a boating trip, disillusioned with the ocean after Jerome's account of the mishaps his brother-in-law and a friend suffered. They choose the Thames as the marvellous river for their trip, and decide to sail from Kingston to Oxford. Jerome, George and Harris are joined in this adventure by a fox terrier named Montmorency. They plan to camp on the trip despite Jerome's stories about his previous experiences with tents and camping stoves. What follows is a hilarious account about everything they undergo, from the unreliability of barometers to forecast the weather, to the impossible act of learning to play the Scottish bagpipes. Circumstantial and slapstick comedy come together in this classic work of comedy, part memoir and part fiction, by Jerome K. Jerome.