About dogs, thieves, a policeman and other stories

If you ever like to indulge in a portion of old-world tranquillity, which is so well suited to a sunny afternoon, doing nothing and telling funny stories, then you have rightly reached for the short stories of the English writer whom everyone knows as the author of Three Men in a Boat (not to mention The Dog) and the follow-up novel Three Men Wandering. J. K. Jerome was born in England in 1859, the son of a lay preacher. The Czech-sounding name Klapka was given after the Hungarian revolutionary Gyorgy Klapka, with whom the family was friends. In 1889, he brought a manuscript entitled The Story of the Thames to the editors of Home Chimes. Thus was born the magazine series, the book version of which we know as the famous Three Men in a Boat (not to mention the dog), which was later given a sequel under the title Three Men on a Tour.