Jerome K. Jerome

First published in 1891, Diary of a Pilgrimage is a charming retelling of a journey to Oberammergau, Germany: the home of the famous Passion Play.

In 1889, satirist Jerome K. Jerome fully intended to write a serious travel guide when he and his two best friends embarked on a boating trip up the river Thames to Oxford. But his musings on landmarks and local history were soon hijacked by his own digressive, waggish voice. And so, what began...

"The stage hero never has any work to do. He is always hanging about and getting into trouble. His chief aim in life is to be accused of crimes he has never committed, and if he can muddle things up with a corpse in some complicated way so as to get himself reasonably mistaken for the murderer...

"There comes a time in every one's life when he feels he was born to be an actor. Something within him tells him that he is the coming man, and that one day he will electrify the world. Then he burns with a desire to show them how the thing's done, and to draw a salary of three hundred a week...

When three late-Victorian gentlemen escape from their claustrophobic suburban life to go on a cycling tour in the Black Forest of Germany, their trip turns into a comic expedition. Many of their humorous adventures and mishaps relate to the nuances in language and customs; one attempts to board...