Books with title The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, published in 1886, is a collection of humorous essays by Jerome K. Jerome. It was the author’s second published book and it helped establish him as a leading English humorist."It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen." Jerome K. Jerome.

"There are various methods by which you may achieve ignominy and shame. By murdering a large and respected family in cold blood and afterward depositing their bodies in the water companies' reservoir, you will gain much unpopularity in the neighborhood of your crime, and even robbing a church will get you cordially disliked, especially by the vicar. But if you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human creature can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby 'it.'"Unsurpassed as a work of literary and comic genius, Jerome K Jerome's Idle Thoughts is a wonderful set of essays detailing the author's view on a variety of topics, from babies and being hard up to cats and dogs, furnished apartments and being in love"Questions of taste were soon decided in those days. When a twelfth-century youth fell in love he did not take three paces backward, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she was too beautiful to live. He said he would step outside and see about it. And if, when he got out, he met a man and broke his head--the other man's head, I mean--then that proved that his--the first fellow's--girl was a pretty girl. But if the other fellow broke his head--not his own, you know, but the other fellow's--the other fellow to the second fellow, that is, because of course the other fellow would only be the other fellow to him, not the first fellow who--well, if he broke his head, then his girl--not the other fellow's, but the fellow who was the-- Look here, if A broke B's head, then A's girl was a pretty girl; but if B broke A's head, then A's girl wasn't a pretty girl, but B's girl was. That was their method of conducting art criticism."Nowadays we light a pipe and let the girls fight it out among themselves."

This book is an illustrated version of the original Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. Jerome. “One or two friends to whom I showed these papers in MS. having observed that they were not half bad, and some of my relations having promised to buy the book if it ever came out, I feel I have no right to longer delay its issue. But for this, as one may say, public demand, I perhaps should not have ventured to offer these mere "idle thoughts" of mine as mental food for the English-speaking peoples of the earth. What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change.”

"Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" published in 1886, is a collection of humorous essays by Jerome K. Jerome. It was the author’s second published book and it helped establish him as a leading eng humorist. While widely considered one of Jerome’s better works, and in spite of using the same style as "Three Men in a Boat", it was never as popular as the latter.

Jerome K. Jerome's classic collection of comedic essays is presented here for the absorption and enjoyment of the reader. It was this book of essays which put Jerome on the map as a humorist. The subjects of each are mainly subjected to witty contemplation, with serious subjects such as love, infant children, depression and sustenance receiving this treatment in Jerome's keynote amusing style. Each subject is dealt with plainly and frankly, with the author making no claim to serious insight or as a sort of oracle for solutions. The frankness of tone was refreshing for a late Victorian audience - in the decades preceding its publication, prose writing of all forms had tended towards being wordy or flowery. Jerome largely goes against the grain in this book, which to this day reads more like a barbed yet incisive newspaper commentary than a book aspiring toward ideals of romantic, aesthetic and descriptive beauty. For its tone, the book itself attained influence over many columnists and publicists of the day. It directly inspired the title of The Idler magazine, which was a popular periodical for decades to follow. Jerome himself experienced a surge of interest in his literary efforts, and this enthusiasm led to his writing his most famous work - Three Men in a Boat.