Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) (version 3)

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h1>THREE MEN IN A BOAT<br/> (<span class="smcap"><i>to say nothing of the dog</i></span>).</h1> <div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div> <p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br/> JEROME K. JEROME</p> <h2>PREFACE.</h2> <p><i>The chief beauty of this book lies not so much in its literary style</i>, <i>or in the extent and usefulness of the information it conveys</i>, <i>as in its simple truthfulness</i>.&nbsp; <i>Its pages form the record of events that really happened</i>.&nbsp; <i>All that has been done is to colour them</i>; <i>and</i>, <i>for this</i>, <i>no extra charge has been made</i>.&nbsp; <i>George and Harris and Montmorency are not poetic ideals</i>, <i>but things of flesh and blood&mdash;especially George</i>, <i>who weighs about twelve stone</i>.&nbsp; <i>Other works may excel this in depth of thought and knowledge of human nature: other books may rival it in originality and size</i>; <i>but</i>, <i>for hopeless and incurable veracity</i>, <i>nothing yet discovered can surpass it</i>.&nbsp; <i>This</i>, <i>more than all its other charms</i>, <i>will</i>, <i>it is felt</i>, <i>make the volume precious in the eye of the earnest reader</i>; <i>and will lend additional weight to the lesson that the story teaches</i>.</p> <p><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>August</i>, 1889.</p> <p style="text-align: center"> <SPAN href="images/p1b.jpg"> <ANTIMG alt="Graphic of three men in a rowing boat" title= "Graphic of three men in a rowing boat" src="images/p1s.jpg" /></SPAN></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />