Jerome K. Jerome facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jerome Klapka Jerome
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![]() Photograph of Jerome published in the 1890s
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Born | Caldmore, Walsall, Staffordshire, England |
2 May 1859
Died | 14 June 1927 Northampton General Hospital, Northampton |
(agedĀ 68)
Resting place | St Mary's Church, Ewelme, Oxfordshire. |
Occupation | Author, playwright, editor |
Genre | Humour |
Jerome K. Jerome (in full Jerome Klapka Jerome) (1859-1927) was an English novelist, playwright and humorist. He wrote books that were very funny and won him a wide public following. He is best known for the comic Three Men in a Boat (1889).
Other works include the essay collections Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel, a sequel to Three Men in a Boat, and several other novels which won him a wide public following. In 1926, Jerome published his autobiography, My Life and Times.
World War I and last years
Jerome volunteered to serve his country at the outbreak of the war, but, being 56 years old, was rejected by the British Army. Eager to serve in some capacity, he volunteered as an ambulance driver for the French Army.
Jerome suffered a stroke in June 1927, on a motoring tour from Devon to London via Cheltenham and Northampton, he died 14 June. He was cremated at Golders Green and his ashes buried at St Mary's Church, Ewelme, Oxfordshire. A small museum dedicated to his life and works was opened in 1984 at his birth home in Walsall, but it closed in 2008, and the contents were returned to Walsall Museum.