by John Welford

Created on: November 08, 2009

Jerome Klapka Jerome was born on 2nd May 1859 in Walsall, Staffordshire, where his father, Jerome Clapp Jerome, owned a coalmine. Jerome senior had originally been Jerome Clapp, but preferred his first name to his surname so he repeated it. Jerome junior had originally had the same name as his father but in later life changed "Clapp" to "Klapka".

The colliery went bankrupt and the family moved to London where Jerome senior became an ironmonger. However, he died when Jerome junior was only 13. Jerome had been attending what was to become Marylebone Grammar School, but his father's death meant that he had to earn his own living and support his mother, which he did by becoming a clerk on the London and North-Western Railway until his mother died two years later.

Jerome became a part-time actor (later full-time) and also dabbled in journalism and teaching. He tried his hand at writing and wrote the first of many plays in 1886. He had already published a set of humorous sketches in 1885 based on his acting experiences, entitled "On the Stage - and Off".

He married Georgina Marris in 1888, shortly after her divorce from her first husband. She already had a five-year-old daughter, and the couple were to have a daughter of their own in 1897.

In 1889 Jerome's name was made for life with the publication of "Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)". This was originally intended to be a travelogue of the places to be encountered on River Thames between Kingston and Oxford, with added pieces of history to accompany the scenes. However, Jerome soon found that he could not keep the humour out and it turned into the comic masterpiece that we have today. It is still a very funny book, although there are serious elements in it as well, such as finding the body of a woman who had committed suicide, to which Jerome devoted several pages.

The boat trip as described was fictional, although the three men were real enough (the dog was not) and they had been for frequent trips on the river together and visited many of the places that are described. The book can still be used as a guidebook to the Thames today, and even most of the riverside pubs can be visited 120 years later.

So much of the book was true to life that the BBC was able to recreate the trip in 2005 with three well-loved comedians who are themselves great friends (Griff Rhys Jones, Dara O Briain and Rory McGrath).

Jerome was never able to repeat the success of "Three Men in a Boat", although he certainly

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