Passing of the Third Floor Back

by Jerome K. Jerome

Originally published in 1904. Collection of 6 short stories by the author of the well-know humorous novel, Three Men in a Boat. These are:
Passing of the Third Floor Back
The Philosopher's Joke
The Soul of Nicholas Snyder, or The Miser of Zandam
Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies
The Cost of Kindness
The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Humor, Plays

186 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1928

About the author

Jerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humorist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1889). Other works include the essay collections Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel, a sequel to Three Men in a Boat; and several other novels. Jerome was born in Walsall, England, and, although he was able to attend grammar school, his family suffered from poverty at times, as did he as a young man trying to earn a living in various occupations. In his twenties, he was able to publish some work, and success followed. He married in 1888, and the honeymoon was spent on a boat on the River Thames; he published Three Men in a Boat soon afterwards. He continued to write fiction, non-fiction and plays over the next few decades, though never with the same level of success.

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unalloyed goodness throws the outside world for a loop! Folks will try to see everything in it but what it IS.

Unalloyed goodness is a lot like in Chance the Gardner, Kozinski’s creation. No one sees the Real Chance!

Up close and personal, Jerome’s “young/old gentleman” cannot be cozied up to reflect phoniness. He just sees people’s GOOD points.

For this new guy on the block has no published credentials;

He comes to this typical London boarding house an anonymous stranger;

His attitude is discrete but positive; positive yet truthful.

So -

To the world he has no substance.

Eureka!

The modern world is being born, out of the ashes of failed tradition.

These days substance in the Edwardian sense has ceased to exist. Jerome already saw that, hence this book’s early impact.

Our identity is no longer based on ethical principles, but on power, money and success.

Real life is not pretty. And it’s largely forgotten its manners and its pure intentions. Jerome’s Gentleman hasn’t.

He has perfected his will in truthful positivity.

The world, meanwhile, is oblivious to good intentions. It is ONLY as good as it must seem.

So if you, for example, would think only kind and positive thoughts all the time, you’d be thrown off balance.

But what if we lost our false bonhommie? Having lost all our useless chatter about ourselves, what if we stayed:

At the still point at the centre of the world...
For there the Dance is -

For this is the minuscule pin upon which the Angels dance!

This book will bemuse you, just as the world consistently does -

But Jerome K. Jerome’s Gentleman won’t lead us astray -

He shows us OURSELVES...

As we are INSIDE, without our PROPS.

[Dr.J.G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square was coming to a very good opinion of itself: for the which not Bloomsbury Square so much as the stranger must be blamed. The stranger had arrived at Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square with the preconceived idea—where obtained from Heaven knows—that its seemingly commonplace, mean-minded, coarse-fibred occupants were in reality ladies and gentlemen of the first water; and time and observation had apparently only strengthened this absurd idea. The natural result was, Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square was coming round to the stranger's opinion of itself."

Other than this stranger addressing Miss Devine as "My child" during his last conversation with her before he leaves, there is no other clue to his identity; the author leaves it to the reader to infer or conclude this, during or after reading the short story.
............

[Barb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published in 1904. Interesting collection of early 20th century short stories, with religious-moralistic lessons, and quite a lot of humour. I read these with mild enjoyment, but their value is perhaps more for the scholar or for someone seeking out tales to enjoy for their curiousity factor, rather than for pure amusement in the modern mode.

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 3 out of 5]

ENGLISH: Interesting comedy by Jerome, where a guesthouse that has become a house of horrors, where no one is comfortable with anyone, is transformed after the arrival of a mysterious character who knows everything about everyone.

I watched this play many years ago and didn't like it. Now I've watched it in the archive of Estudio-1 and have liked it a lot. And now I've watched it again.

ESPAÑOL: Interesante comedia de Jerome, en la que una pensión que se ha convertido en la casa de los horrores, donde nadie está a gusto con nadie, se transforma tras la llegada de un misterioso personaje que lo sabe todo sobre todos.

Vi esta obra hace muchos años y no me gustó. Ahora la he visto en el archivo de Estudio-1 y me ha gustado bastante. Y ahora la he visto otra vez.

[Thomas Murch · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I was, for example, trying to describe The Passing of the Third Floor Back in the opening sentence of a review, I'd say that it was a cross between A Christmas Carol and An Inspector Calls. In the prologue, we are introduced to a variety of characters who reside in the same boarding house, and who generally conspire to make each other miserable. A new tenant moves in; a mysterious man who is never named. He speaks to each of his new housemates in turn, and prompts them to reconsider their harmful actions. By the epilogue, they all get along like one big happy family. It's a simple tale, with few twists and tricks to keep the reader engaged - but I find such stories to be quite soothing, and the wit of Jerome K. Jerome to be pleasant. I suspect that even a short morality play like this might seem a bit tame or preachy to modern audiences ... but if that sort of sentimental story has an appeal for you, as they do for me, I'd give this a firm recommendation.

NOTE: whilst the old hardback version I read was formatted as a script for a play, other versions (such as the one on the Project Gutenberg website) is written in prose, and has at least a few other differences in dialogue from the small sample I glimpsed at.

[Yoana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, not terrible. It was definitely light-hearted and entertaining - what I was looking for in a 2hour flight, wearing a mask. However, it's more like something you'd find on a 9th grader's reading list for the summer so as to teach him/her about morals.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: The free version I downloaded was just the one short story, Passing of the Third Floor Back, not the whole collection of stories.

It is a moralistic, antiquated tale and, if you understand that going in, it is a good little story. It was helpful for me to know the plot beforehand so that I could more easily follow the hundred-year-old verbiage and syntax.

Spoiler: a mysterious stranger seeks temporary shelter in an English boarding house occupied by a cast of selfish, gossip-prone and prickly characters. One by one, the stranger's goodness infects them and transforms them. The story does leave short some details, but in its defense, never pretends to be a literary classic.

[Cliff Watt · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting short tale, quite apart from JKJ's usual style of heavy wit and humour but bringing out his more philosophical traits. Reminiscent in some ways of 'an inspector calls' we find an angel (or some other heavenly type being) mysterious arrive at a boarding house and one by one he changes the characters of each of the lodgers by making them see their true selves as the best version of themselves that they can be. Beautifully written and exquisitely short, leave a wistful sense of possibility for each of our own consciousnesses to think about.

[Neil Denham · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange little moral tale, which I read in less than an hour. A friend gave me this in a nice little hardback form, from 1901, which makes it one of the oldest books I own.

This version is clearly adapted from a play, as this is very dialogue heavy, but entertaining none the less!

[More Books Than Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short novella shows power of clear sight when one stops pretending.

[Mariangel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play takes place in a guest house, where all tenants gossip and pretend in front of the rest.
One day a new tenant arrives and everyone who meets him changes for the better.

[Earl Solper · Rating 3 out of 5]

The tone of this short story is not as dark as The Dancing Partner, nor is it as light-hearted as tone of most of the author's short stories. Instead, it has a strongly religious character. The "mystery" is almost immediately obvious. It is, however, shorter than most sermons.

An angel visits a second rate boarding house. The boarders, an odd mix of Londoners barely clinging to life in the middle class, gradually trade in their outer, mean-spirited personality constructs for their better, true selves, simply because the angel treats them as though they already had become their better selves. Well, perhaps there is a touch of heavenly coercion, since under the angel's influence the boarders can see themselves as they ought to be in juxtaposition with who they have become.

[Mary Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

A man checks into a boarding house for three weeks and changes all of the other boarders, each in a different way.

This book appeared on my Kindle unaccountably, so I read it. It turned out to be a short story.

[Eden Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Visit JetBlackDragonfly (The Man Who Read Too Much) at www.edenthompson.ca/blog

The Passing Of The Third Floor Back (1907) by Jerome K. Jerome is a gem that introduced me to a new author.
He is best known for his 1889 comic travelogue Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing Of The Dog), in which three friends embark on a boating holiday up the Thames. An overwhelming success, the combination of humour and local colour caused a surge in boat rentals, as its route is fairly easy to recreate. Undated, the jokes seem fresh and witty today, and the novel has not been out of publication (in many languages) since 1889. Three Men has been filmed six times and Jerome wrote a sequel (Three Men On Wheels), continuing its influence on popular culture.
But that is another story.

The Passing Of The Third Floor Back is a collection of six sentimental and philosophical stories, starting with the captivating title story - the tale of a stranger arriving in London seeking lodging. He finds Mrs. Pennycherry on Bloomsbury Square who offers a room at the back, with breakfast. His presence has a strange effect on everyone he encounters, finding themselves relaxing their unconscious motives and dropping their social facades. Penny-pinching Mrs. Pennycherry; the Colonel who jokingly ridicules his wife; the highly coloured Miss Kate afraid of losing her beauty; and Emily - cousin to Sir William the Baronet, no less - all begin to drop their guard to reveal their authentic, better selves under his caring gaze, his understanding and calm attention. This was entirely enchanting, an allegory that has been typed as religious, but the beauty is it can be read on a wide spectrum: from changing the lives of those around you just by giving simple, caring attention, to perhaps he really is an angel - or perhaps, he is more. A real gem, and it's only 40 pages.

The Philosopher's Joke is a fantasy story about three married couples who have grown weary. One married a beauty who is aging; another married a dowdy girl who 20 years later has blossomed; a woman chose a great dancer who no longer dances. Youth is discussed over drinks one night, and a stranger offers them a magical way to return 20 years into the past, while retaining the knowledge of this exact future.
Is it an offer too good to pass up?

The Cost of Kindness is short and sweet, a memorable story of a village parish who vehemently despise their Rev. Augustus Craklethorpe. Despite trying to be good Christians, his sermons are painful and the man cannot be tolerated. Craklethorpe equally hates his parishioners, who he sees as simpleminded nobodies. The day when he announces he is quitting Wychwood-on-the-heath is silently celebrated all around. The only problem is Mrs. Pennycoop, whose desire to wish him well upends everything!

The Passing Of The Third Floor Back began as a stage play in 1907, and has been filmed twice (in 1918 and 1935). Along with more than 10 novels, and over 20 stage plays, Jerome K. Jerome has a museum in his birthplace and there are statues and plaques commemorating his work all over the world.

"I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours" - Jerome K. Jerome

[Mbuye · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember reading somewhere that JKJ got so fed up with the popularity of his frivolous books, that he turned quite deliberately to serious and even creepy short stories. That must have been the case with the stories in ‘The Passing of the Third Floor Back,’ published in 1900. To a Victorian reader (yes, she was still around), some of the stories, filled with mystical and even religious overtones, might have been completely acceptable, and devilish pacts an everyday occurrence, like five o'clock tea.

To a reader of the twenty-first century, the stories might appear hopelessly naive and ponderous. They are not. For their time, they were even a little avant-garde, and dealt with matters of tremendous popular interest, such as the supernatural or spiritualism. Those subjects might have been overtaken today by fantasy, witches, warlords and werewolves, or sci-fi and space literature, but the effect is the same. The language might seem heavy to us, because we are so used to pictures on a screen that we have all but forgotten how language changes naturally.

‘Passing of the Third Floor Back’ and ‘The Soul of Nicolas Snyders, or The Miser of Zandam’ are frankly supernatural, and the two sides of the same coin.

‘Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies’ and ‘The Cost of Kindness’ are wickedly satirical and laugh-out funny, and show Jerome in the light we are used to thinking of him as the author of ‘Three Men in a Boat.’

‘The Philosopher’s Joke’ is not exactly supernatural, but a chance offered to three wrangling couples to relive their choices in life. It reminded me strongly of Hawthorne’s ‘Dr Heidegger's Experiment’ (1837).

‘The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl’ – we’ve all known Ulrich, or someone like him, who can't help falling in love with this girl and that, and she, and her, and sometimes all of them at the same time. But when push comes to shove, something or somebody, Ulrich finds, means more to him than any one person he knows.

An interesting sidelight to me was the number of German names scattered throughout not only here, but in other Victorian literature, until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. It showed the prevalence of German among the upper classes, especially among those accustomed to moving in Court circles, since the Hanoverians became the ruling dynasty. After 1870, the German Herr was usually the stock figure of fun, a bumbling clumsiness despite (or maybe because of) his military efficiency in trivial matters.

[Jim Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

When a comedic author plays it straight it does not always go well. This set of short stories is predictable, overly long, and not especially well written. This collection seems like a set of stories Jerome placed in middle-brow magazines of his day to pay the bills.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 2 out of 5]

(review to follow)

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommend especially ‘The House of the Two Cedars’.