Jerome, Jerome Klapka

Jerome, Jerome Klapka,

1859–1927, English humorist and playwright. His Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Three Men in a Boat (1889) gave him his reputation for genial humor. Of his dramatic works, The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1907), a contemporary morality play, was the most famous.

Bibliography

See study by R. M. Favrot (1973).

Jerome, Jerome Klapka

 

(Jerome K. Jerome). Born May 2, 1859, in Walsall, Staffordshire County; died June 14, 1927, at Northhampton. English writer.

Jerome was a teacher, clerk, actor, and editor of humor journals. His first works deal with the theater. He visited Russia in 1899, recording his impressions in the article “Russians, As I Know Them” (published in Russian translation as “People of the Future,” 1906). His most popular work is the humorous novel Three Men in a Boat (to Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889. A sequel to this work is the novel Three Men on the Bummel (1900). Jerome is the author of many humorous short stories and plays, the most popular of which is The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1907). His humor is good-natured, not infrequently colored by sentimentality and moralizing. The petty misfortunes of luckless run-of-the-mill individuals is his usual theme.

WORKS

My Life and Times. London, 1926.
In Russian translation:
Sobr. soch., vols. 1-12. Moscow, 1912.
Izbr. proizv., vols. 1-2. (Compiled and with an introduction by S. Markish.) Moscow, 1957.
Rasskazy. (Commentary by L. V. Khvostenko, afterword by A. Gozenpud.) Leningrad, 1958.

REFERENCE

Istoriia angliiskoi literatury, vol. 3. Moscow, 1958.

I. M. KATARSKII