Jerome JK
ACHIEVEMENTS: Major English literary figure
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None.
DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 2nd May 1859, in Walsall, England.
DATE/PLACE/AGE AT DEATH: 14th June 1927, in Northampton, England. Aged 68.
DISCIPLINE: Writer.
FIELD: Literature and drama.
LANGUAGE: English.
PARENTS: Jerome Clapp Jerome and Marguerite Jones.
SIBLINGS: Milton, Paulina and Blandina.
SPOUSE: Georgina Henrietta Stanley.
CHILDREN: Rowena.
EDUCATION: Marylebone Grammar School, London.
MAJOR WORK: ‘Three Men in a Boat’ (1889), ‘Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow’ (1889), ‘Three Men on the Bummel’ (1900), ‘Paul Kelver’ (1902), ‘The Passing of the Third Floor Back’ (play, 1908).
LIFE AND TIMES: Jerome worked briefly as a secretary and a schoolmaster then as a legal clerk, at which time he shared lodgings with George Wingrave, an impoverished young bank clerk. It was Wingrave who encouraged Jerome to start writing and he began with a series of essays about the stage. His essays were published in a magazine called ‘The Play’ and, in 1885, they were published in book form as ‘On the Stage - and Off’.
Jerome and Wingrave moved to better rooms located near the British Museum and, along with a young photographer called Carl Hentschel, they would all unwind on cycling and boating trips. Jerome was taken on as a contributor to a journal: ‘Home Chimes’, where he became friendly with fellow contributors Twain*, the poetSwinburne* and the youngBarrie*, who later wrote ‘Peter Pan’.
He regularly contributed to the magazine’s ‘Gossips' Corner’, while continuing to write more essays, published as ‘Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow’, in 1889. His literary efforts produced results and, out of the four plays he wrote at the time, ‘Sunset’, ‘Pity is Akin to Love’ and ‘Fennel’, were all performed during 1888 and 1889. He then married the daughter of a Spanish army officer in 1889 and they set up home in Chelsea, London, where she encouraged him to forget about being a lawyer and take up writing full time. He gave up his law studies and took a boating trip up the Thames, from Kingston to Oxford, with Hentschel and Wingrave.
When he returned home, Jerome wrote his best-known work: ‘Three Men in a Boat’. Following a serialization in ‘Home Chimes’, it was published as a book in 1889 and, an instant success, was translated into twenty-three languages and even pirated in the United States.
Jerome continued to write for the stage and, in 1890, ‘New Lamps for Old’ and ‘Ruth’ were both staged but had little impact on the public. To gain material for another ‘Three Men’ book, he planned to visit Oberammergau, in the Austrian Alps, for a production of the Passion Play. He ended up going with only one friend and the result was ‘The Diary of a Pilgrimage’ which was a flop. Undeterred, Jerome published a book of ghost stories, ‘Told After Supper’ the same year, then founded ‘The Idler’ in 1892, with Robert Barr and George Brown Burgin. After interviewing Kipling*, Barr offered the editorship to Jerome instead, and the magazine was launched as an illustrated monthly periodical.
With the exception of Mark Twain and Harte*, most of the contributors were young men such as Zangwill* and Conan Doyle* who, at the time, were not yet established writers. Each month, the magazine held a tea party where the editors met the contributors. Jerome wanted to be a more serious writer so, in 1893, he founded his own publication: ‘To-Day’. Zangwill, with whom he had become close friends, was the main contributor and, in November 1894, Thomas Hardy*, regarded by Jerome as the country’s finest novelist, wrote a story for the paper.
The success of the periodical enabled Jerome and his wife to move to a large house in St John's Wood, an up-market area of London, where they entertained literary and artistic celebrities like WS Gilbert*, H Rider Haggard andHG Wells*.In 1895, Jerome collaborated on the successful play, ‘The Prude's Progress’, which received good reports from critics including Shaw*. Jerome claimed that the play did well because of advice he had been given by Stoker*, then a theatrical manager. Stoker’s advice was on the importance of 'dressing' a theatre with invited guests and keeping the press informed of any nobility that attended.
Things then turned sour in 1897, when as editor of ‘To-Day,’ Jerome was involved in a costly libel case. The case ruined him and he lost his job, but his backlist saved him from poverty and he moved to Wallingford on the Thames, where he published a second collection of ‘Idle Thoughts’ and wrote more plays, of which ‘Miss Hobbs’ was a success. In need of fresh inspiration, Wingrave, Hentschel and Jerome set off on a cycling tour of Germany in 1900. They went by boat to Hamburg, then went on to Berlin and Dresden before going to the Black Forest via Nuremberg and Stuttgart. The trip resulted in his new book, ‘Three Men on the Bummel’.
At the end of 1900, he took his family to Dresden, where he began to write a novel: ‘Paul Kelver’. When published in 1902, the book was a success, but then Jerome lost all interest in novel writing.
After visiting St Petersburg, Russia, where ‘Three Men on a Boat’ had enjoyed enormous success, in 1908, he sailed to America and Canada on a lecture tour. He spoke in every US State, using an actor to do the readings. Such was his success that he was even summoned to meet President Theodore Roosevelt*.
When he returned to Britain, he worked on his play ‘The Passing of the Third Floor Back’, which was produced with Forbes-Robertson* in the lead role and became a roaring success, establishing Jerome as a leading playwright.
In 1915, he accepted an invitation to visit the USA so that he could put forward a case for the United States to join the 1914-18 War, but President Woodrow Wilson* stressed America’s neutrality and Jerome came home empty handed.
Back in England, he wasn’t able to join the British army, but the French took him on as an ambulance driver. He had many bad experiences on the Western Front, before he came back to London to call for a negotiated peace. Jerome died while on a motoring holiday in Britain.
ASSESSMENT: Jerome was a prominent literary figure in his day as an editor, essayist, novelist and a playwright.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: He was a supporter of the YMCA*
ONELINER: Jerome K Jerome, major literary figure
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Connolly, Joseph, Jerome K Jerome, A Critical Biography, Orbis Publishing, London, 1982.