THREE MEN IN A BOAT - JEROME K. JEROME - USED, GOOD, COLL

• Title: Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)

• Author: Jerome K. Jerome (Jerome Klapka Jerome)

• Publisher: Donohue & Henneberry (Chicago)

• Publication Date: Circa 1890–1895 (Undated, as was common for this publisher's popular reprint series)

• Format: Small cloth hardcover featuring a beautiful, stamped Victorian Art Nouveau/Aesthetic style silver-and-white cover design on a dark navy/black cloth background.

Historical & Content Background

When Jerome K. Jerome published Three Men in a Boat in England in 1889, he originally intended it to be a serious, respectable travel guide documenting a boating holiday along the River Thames from Kingston to Oxford. He planned to sprinkle in local history, topography, and descriptions of scenic spots along the route.

However, Jerome’s natural comedic wit completely took over the manuscript. The book transformed into a hilarious, timeless satire of Victorian middle-class life, male hypochondria, and the chaotic realities of camping and boating. The characters are based on Jerome himself and his real-life friends, accompanied by a entirely fictional, aggressively combative Fox Terrier named Montmorency. The book was an absolute publishing phenomenon, selling so many copies worldwide that it single-handedly caused a massive boom in the Thames boating industry that lasted for decades.

This copy was produced by Donohue & Henneberry, a massive Chicago printing and binding firm founded by bookbinders Michael Donohue and William Henneberry. In 1890, to capitalize on the massive American craze for popular European literature, the firm began actively printing inexpensive, uncopyrighted "library" editions of famous works. Because the partnership was legally dissolved amid an un-amicable feud in early 1900, we know with absolute certainty that this book was printed between 1890 and 1899.