Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow Jerome K. Jerome - Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, published in 1886, is a collection of humorous essays by Jerome K. Jerome. It was the authors second published book and it helped establish him as a leading English humorist. While widely considered one of Jeromes better works, and in spite of using the same style as Three Men in a Boat, it was never as popular as the latter. A second "Idle Thoughts" book, The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow, was published in 1898.