Editing Jerome K. Jerome (section)

== Acting career and early literary works ==
Jerome was inspired by his elder sister Blandina's love for the theatre, and he decided to try his hand at acting in 1877, under the stage name Harold Crichton.<ref name=shropstar /> He joined a [[repertory theatre]] troupe that produced plays on a shoestring budget, often drawing on the actors' own meagre resources&nbsp;— Jerome was penniless at the time&nbsp;— to purchase costumes and props. After three years on the road with no evident success, the 21-year-old Jerome decided that he had had enough of stage life and sought other occupations. He tried to become a journalist, writing essays, satires, and short stories, but most of these were rejected. Over the next few years, he was a school teacher, a packer, and a solicitor's clerk. Finally, in 1885, he had some success with ''On the Stage&nbsp;— and Off'' (1885), a comic memoir of his experiences with the acting troupe, followed by ''[[Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow]]'' (1886), a collection of humorous essays which had previously appeared in the newly founded magazine, ''[[Home Chimes]]'',<ref name=oulton>[https://books.google.com/books?id=K9Q9br1Yh4EC&dq=Brett+Harte+home+chimes&pg=PA54 Oulton, Carolyn (2012) ''Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome''. Victorian Secrets]  at Google Books. Retrieved 11 May 2013.</ref> the same magazine that would later serialise ''Three Men in a Boat''.<ref name=oulton />

On 21 June 1888, Jerome married Georgina Elizabeth Henrietta Stanley Marris ("Ettie"), nine days after she divorced her first husband. She had a daughter from her previous five-year marriage nicknamed Elsie (her actual name was also Georgina). The honeymoon took place on the River Thames "in a little boat,"<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=6cAeAAAAMAAJ&q=honeymoon+%22Jerome+k.+Jerome%22 Joseph Connolly. ''Jerome K. Jerome'', p. 183]</ref> a fact that was to have a significant influence on his next and most important work, ''Three Men in a Boat''.