Jerome K. Jerome

Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859–1927) was an English humorist, novelist and playwright. Born in Walsall and raised in poverty in London after his father's business failed, he left school at fourteen and worked as a railway clerk, actor, teacher and journalist before his first book, On the Stage and Off, appeared in 1885. Three Men in a Boat, published in 1889, made him famous and has never been out of print; Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, Three Men on the Bummel and the play The Passing of the Third Floor Back followed. In his fifties he drove an ambulance for the French army in the First World War.