Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Very few books are genuinely funny. Even fewer truly funny authors. You are holding a rare specimen of exactly that kind of literature. Jerome K. Jerome… Continue? All right. One of the greatest English humorists, a sizable portion of whose books found demand on the continent even greater than in England itself. Or should we give the floor to the author himself:

“This small volume is lovingly and gratefully dedicated to my truly dear and sincerely beloved friend of the good and bad days; a friend who, at the beginning of our nearest acquaintance, was often at odds with me, but over time became my best companion; to a friend who, when he encountered from the side of my household women only cold, unfriendly indifference, and from the side of my faithful dog—unfriendly suspicion, and also from my own side receiving more and more different undeserved disappointments every day—only made the atmosphere of his devotion around me thicker and thicker; to a friend who never reproaches me for my shortcomings, never borrows money from me, and never thinks too highly of himself; a companion of my idle hours, comforter of my sorrows, confidant of my joys and hopes—my old and steadfast pipe.”