Three Men on the Bummel (Abridged)

Published in 1900, eleven years after his most famous work, Three Men in a Boat The story revives the three companions who featured in Three Men in a Boat, this time their journey taking them on a bicycle tour through the German Black Forest. Written during the Victorian era bicycle-craze. in a light-hearted way it's a commentary on German culture at the time told through the eyes of the hapless British tourist. The narrator fills us in further: "A 'Bummel'," is described as a journey, long or short, without an end; the only thing regulating it being the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started. Sometimes it is through busy streets, and sometimes through the fields and lanes.