Three Men in a Boat

Three friends and a fox terrier take a boat up the Thames from Kingston to Oxford, and almost nothing happens with enormous consequence: a tin of pineapple and no opener, a towpath, a hamper, the maze at Hampton Court. Jerome meant it as a serious guide to the river and could not keep the jokes out; his editor cut most of the history and kept the rest. It has been continuously in print since 1889. Thirty-four plates of river life and comic mishap, from Rowlandson to Frith, give the journey the visual company it has always deserved.