Three+Men+in+a+Boat+and+later+career

=Three Men in a Boat and later career.=

On 21 June 1888 Jerome married divorcee Georgina Elizabeth Henrietta Stanley Marris, "Ettie" (1859–1938) who had a daughter from her previous marriage, his beloved "Elsie" who would die in 1921. Jerome and Georgina's daughter Rowena was born in 1898. Despite his straitened circumstances he kept his sardonic humour and wrote his slapstick tale of a riverboat trip up the Thames, Three Men in a Boat, (1889) subtitle to say nothing of the dog. The story was inspired by his honeymoon and based on himself and two real-life friends, George Wingrave, whom he'd met while a clerk, and Carl Hentschel whom he'd met through the theatre. "It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours." Three Men in a Boat (to Say Nothing of the Dog) Jerome's penury had paid off and Three Men in a Boat was an instant success. It clinched his reputation as a humourist and he was encouraged to devote his full efforts to writing. Now well-placed in the heart of literary London, in 1893 Jerome founded the co-weekly Today and in 1892 he founded and co-edited The Idler with his friend and fellow humourist Robert Barr. It was a satirical gentlemen’s illustrated monthly catering to men who appreciated idleness, and extolled the virtues of idle-making pursuits. Jerome was well-connected in literary society at this point and with such mordant and witty contributors as Mark Twain, Luke Sharpe (Barr's pseudonym), Rudyard Kipling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle it was a huge success. Lampooning Victorian values with essays, cartoons and anecdotal tales, it also contained sports reports and short stories. Another of the many contributors was W.W. Jacobs. "Often he will spend… an entire morning constructing a single sentence,” Jerome wrote. "If he writes a four thousand word story in a month, he feels he has earned a holiday; and the reason that he does not always take it is that he is generally too tired." His controversial style of journalism led to a libel suit in 1897 against Jerome which he lost, costing ?9000. He would write of the saga: "I have the satisfaction of boasting that it was the longest case, and one of the most expensive ever heard in the Court of Queen’s Bench." Jerome sold his interest in both The Idler and Today. Jerome was off to Germany in 1898 which inspired his Three Men on the Bummel (1900). This sequel to Three Men in a Boat was about their cycling tour of the Black Forest. Jerome would also travel to Norway and Russia. In 1902 he published his autobiographical Paul Kelver. Five years later his success would take him on a lecture tour of the United States.