Jerome K. Jerome, página 3 de 8

The famous story of three men and a dog setting off in an open boat on a hilarious voyage up the Thames. The story is full of mishaps - falling into the river and getting lost in Hampton Court Maze - but also offers comments on the world. This excursion was undertaken at the end of the last century and comments on the times have acquired a deeper fascination.

What we want, said Harris, is a change.At this moment the door opened, and Mrs. Harris put her head in to say that Ethelbertha had sent her to remind me that we must not be late getting home because of Clarence. Ethelbertha, I am inclined to think, is unnecessarily nervous about the children. As a matter of fact, there was nothing wrong with the child whatever. He had been out with his aunt that morning; and if he looks wistfully at a pastrycooks window she takes him inside and buys him cream buns and maids-of-honour until he insists that he has had enough, and politely, but firmly, refuses to eat another anything. Then, of course, he wants only one helping of pudding at lunch, and Ethelbertha thinks he is sickening for something. Mrs. Harris added that it would be as well for us to come upstairs soon, on our own account also, as otherwise we should miss Muriels rendering of The Mad Hatters Tea Party, out of Alice in Wonderland.

The chief beauty of this book lies not so much in its literary style, or in the extent and usefulness of the information it conveys, as in its simple truthfulness. Its pages form the record of events that really happened. All that has been done is to colour them; and, for this, no extra charge has been made. George and Harris and Montmorency are not poetic ideals, but things of flesh and bloodespecially George, who weighs about twelve stone. Other works may excel this in depth of thought and knowledge of human nature: other books may rival it in originality and size; but, for hopeless and incurable veracity, nothing yet discovered can surpass it. This, more than all its other charms, will, it is felt, make the volume precious in the eye of the earnest reader; and will lend additional weight to the lesson that the story teaches.

Now, this is a subject on which I flatter myself I really am au fait. The gentleman who, when I was young, bathed me at wisdoms font for nine guineas a termno extrasused to say he never knew a boy who could do less work in more time; and I remember my poor grandmother once incidentally observing, in the course of an instruction upon the use of the Prayer-book, that it was highly improbable that I should ever do much that I ought not to do, but that she felt convinced beyond a doubt that I should leave undone pretty well everything that I ought to do.I am afraid I have somewhat belied half the dear old ladys prophecy. Heaven help me! I have done a good many things that I ought not to have done, in spite of my laziness. But I have fully confirmed the accuracy of her judgment so far as neglecting much that I ought not to have neglected is concerned. Idling always has been my strong point. I take no credit to myself in the matterit is a gift. Few possess it. There are plenty of lazy people and plenty of slow-coaches, but a genuine idler is a rarity. He is not a man who slouches about with his hands in his pockets. On the contrary, his most startling characteristic is that he is always intensely busy.

Una taza de porcelana china, un sueño o la escritura de una carta son los asuntos aparentemente ínfimos que dan pie a estos ensayos escritos por el inglés Charles Lamb a comienzos del siglo XIX. Bajo la voz alegre y honesta que habla de sucesos cotidianos se descubre la sutileza, el humor y la profunda comprension del hombre que marcan cada una de las observaciones y digresiones. Esta voz tiene la rara cualidad de penetrar en lo esencial a partir de un estilo descuidado, y de proyectarse fuera del tiempo el nuestro o el de sus ancestros desde las cosas mas sencillas de cada dia. Como en todo ensayo clasico, se trata de la imaginacion y reflexion de un escritor que aprehende con asombro un mundo donde la tradicion literaria y la historia personal se iluminan mutuamente. Es un curso de pensamiento que se rie de si mismo para entregar placer y se hace cargo de su debilidad para enseñar lo que lo enaltece: la amistad,la libertad, la sabiduria que no se complace en si misma y el espiritu feliz de la niñez.

This popular series of readers has now been completely revised and updated, using a new syllabus and new word structure lists. Readability has been ensured by means of specially designed computer software. Words that are above level but essential to the story are explained within the text, illustrated, and then reused for maximum reinforcement.

Who would be a chaperone?He would fling himself on his knees before her, never noticing the dogI left them at itHe went with her and made himself ridiculous at the dressmakersWhy should we seek to explain away all the beautiful things of life?Are we so sure that art does elevate?The artist knew precisely the sort of girl that ought to be thereA mans work tis till set of sun, but a womans work is never done!Does the lady out shopping ever fall in love with the waiter at the bun-shop?Woman has been appointed by Nature the trustee of the childrenComparing himself the while with Moliere reading to his cookThe singer may be a heavy, fleshy man with a taste for beerIt is the fool who imagines her inhumanIt seized a natural human passion and turned it to good usesShe suggested that poets and novelists should take service for a year in any large drapery or millinery establishmentWho is it succeeds in escaping the law of the hive?

When J. the narrator, George, Harris and Montmorency the dog set off on their hilarious misadventures, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts, imaginary illnesses, butter pats and tins of pineapple chunks. Denounced as vulgar by the literary establishment, Three Men in a Boat nevertheless caught the spirit of the times. The expansion of education and the increase in office workers created a new mass readership, and Jerome's book was especially popular among the 'clerking classes' who longed to be 'free from that fretful haste, that vehement striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of nineteenth-century life.'So popular did it prove that Jerome reunited his heroes for a bicycle tour of Germany. Despite some sharp, and with hindsight, prophetic observations of the country, Three Men on the Bummel describes an equally picaresque journey constrained only 'by the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started'.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

"One of the comic gems of the English language." Robert McCrum"[Jerome saw] that one of the funniest things a human being has is his conscience." V. S. PritchettMartyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a T. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.s small fox-terrier Montmorency.Three Men in a Boat was an instant success when it appeared in 1889, and, with its benign escapism, authorial discursions and wonderful evocation of the late-Victorian clerking classes, it hilariously captured the spirit of its age.

«Éramos cuatro: George, William Samuel Harris, yo y Montmorency. Estábamos sentados en mi habitación, fumando y charlando sobre lo mal que nos encontrábamos; mal desde el punto de vista médico, natur

As they relax after dinner on Christmas Eve, the members of a family and their guests turn to telling ghost stories. These ghoulish accounts range from the melancholy to the macabre, and get increasingly bizarre as the ghosts leap out of the tales and make an appearance in the family's home. Fact and fiction, the real and unreal collide, until the reader is not sure who is haunting whom.A masterful work of comic horror, Jerome K. Jerome's After-Supper Ghost Stories is a witty look at why Christmas Eve is so perfect for ghost stories and why ghosts love the Yuletide season.