"Punch" ; Jerrold, Douglas William. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. Hartford: S. Andrus & Son, 1846. [8594]
Black cloth, gilt title to front, edges worn, 6 x 4 inches, several early owner's signatures (one dated 1846), wood engraved frontispiece, 156 pp., tight, foxing. Good. Hardcover.
"Punch" is a pseudonym of Douglas William Jerrold (1803-1857), an English author of comedy and drama, a contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures was first serialized in Punch, a liberal and humorous journal to which Jerrold was a main contributor.
"Job Caudle, the 'hero' of the book is a Victorian shopkeeper whose wife finds she can only talk to him without interruption in bed. Caudle, who outlives his wife, finds he can no longer sleep easily because of his memory of these 'lectures' and resolves to exorcise his wife's memory by recording the lectures, it seems with a view to future publication for the edification of others. Jerrold's humour shines through this insight into Victorian middle class culture." - Martin Clifton, LibriVox online.