Reading, Berkshire

Large town on the Thames in Berkshire. Three Men in a Boat finds the river ‘dirty and dismal’ there, sketches its history and gets towed past it by a friend’s steam launch.

At a glance

Source	Author	Role	In one line
Three Men in a Boat	Jerome K. Jerome	journey waypoint	’One does not linger in the neighbourhood of Reading’: a potted history, then a tow by friends’ steam launch.

Three Men in a Boat — Jerome K. Jerome (1889)

Source: Exploration of Three Men in a Boat · Three Men in a Boat · Original · Readwise highlight

We came in sight of Reading about eleven. The river is dirty and dismal here. One does not linger in the neighbourhood of Reading.

• Role: journey waypoint
• In the book: The friends sight Reading about eleven and find the river dirty and dismal. The narrator runs through its history (the Danes, Ethelred and Alfred, Parliament fleeing the plague, Henry I’s abbey), and at Reading lock friends with a steam-launch tow them up to near Streatley.
• Why it matters: A waypoint the book hurries past; its industrial dreariness is a foil for the prettier reaches up and downstream.