Novel Notes

Following his infallible nose for unlikely situations, Jerome K. Jerome sets himself a Herculean task, as main character in his own novel: to fictionally compose another novel, in collaboration with a trio of his pipe-party bachelor friends: Jephson, Brown, and MacShaughnassy.

Jerome, in what he presents as a semi-autobiographical account, turns the sordid business of novel-writing into a delightful parade of human foibles, providing an unending showcase of wit along the way. In the tradition of his Three Men in a Boat, this might well have been entitled Four Men in a Pickle.