The three men are based on Jerome himself (the narrator) and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who would become a senior manager at Barclays Bank) and Carl Hentschel (the founder of a London printing business, called Harris in the book), with whom Jerome often took boating trips. The dog, Montmorency, is entirely fictional but, "as Jerome admits, developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen, contains an element of the dog." The trip is a typical boating holiday of the time in a Thames camping skiff.

Originally intended as a serious travel guide, then streamlined into an amusing account of a farcical boating excursion on the Thames river, Three Men in a Boat is Jerome K. Jerome's controversially "vulgar" take on English history and recreation. A mix of social satire and Victorian wit, this book of ramblings broaches a variety of unlikely subjects, including leisure, nostalgia, and friendship. Despite telling a story where everything goes wrong, this funny travelogue offers a vivid portrait of Victorian England the reader will not soon forget.

Jerome K. Jerome (2 May 1859 – 14 June 1927) was an English writer and humourist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1887). 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.