Short Fiction Jerome, Jerome K.: Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (Illustrated), v2. 25 May 2012

[GrannyGrump]

Jerome Klapka Jerome, English writer and humorist, was best known for the humorous travelogue "Three Men in a Boat." Although he was a prolific writer, that book persists in overshadowing his other work.

"Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow," Jerome's second published book (1886), is a collection of fourteen short essays. They meander, as thoughts will. You will find satiric humor, sober metaphysics, melancholy philosophy, even some rousing bits of slapstick comedy — often all in the same essay.

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A small excerpt:

I wanted an umbrella, and I went into a shop in the Strand and told them so, and they said: “Yes, sir. What sort of an umbrella would you like?”

I said I should like one that would keep the rain off, and that would not allow itself to be left behind in a railway carriage.

“Try an ‘automaton,’” said the shopman.

“What’s an ‘automaton’?” said I.

“Oh, it’s a beautiful arrangement,” replied the man, with a touch of enthusiasm. “It opens and shuts itself.”

I bought one and found that he was quite correct. It did open and shut itself. I had no control over it whatever. When it began to rain, which it did that season every alternate five minutes, I used to try and get the machine to open, but it would not budge; and then I used to stand and struggle with the wretched thing, and shake it, and swear at it, while the rain poured down in torrents. Then the moment the rain ceased the absurd thing would go up suddenly with a jerk and would not come down again; and I had to walk about under a bright blue sky, with an umbrella over my head, wishing that it would come on to rain again, so that it might not seem that I was insane.

When it did shut it did so unexpectedly and knocked one’s hat off.

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Coincidentally, this is the runner-up for MobileRead's March "Book of the Month".

I tried to Anglicise the spelling in this, because it just seemed *wrong* to read an English author in American spelling. But since I am American, there undoubtedly are errors; please do report any you find.

Four full-page illustrations. Small drop-caps.

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EDIT--- uploaded v2, format fixes and text corrections.
Previous version 102 downloads.

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[Jellby]

I've read the book and have a few corrections to make...

[GrannyGrump]

Jellby, thank you so much for the help and suggestions. I hope I improved it.

Uploaded v2 with corrections to text, and format fixes.

[Jellby]

Sorry to be nitpicking, I swear I was not looking for issues, but just noticed this piece of code in the about.xhtml file:

(text corrections, format&nbsp;<span style="font-size: medium;">tweaks).</span>

that <span> doesn't look right, and in my browser test it made "tweaks" look smaller (that's why I noticed).

[GrannyGrump]

No, I WANT nitpicks. Thank you. That though, must have been a Sigil thing, I probably hit some hotkey that triggered it. I will fix and upload correction tomorrow.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

I will fix and upload correction tomorrow.

Did I miss it?

By the way, Sigil v4.2 should be v0.4.2, I guess.