Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures

Number of Chapters: 38

Length: 4 hours and 21 minutes

Language: English

Douglas William Jerrold (1803-1857) was the son of an actor manager. After some time in the Navy and as an apprentice printer he became a playwright and later a journalist. He was a contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens. As a journalist he worked for Punch magazine in which Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures were serialised, to be published in book form in 1846.

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. (Summary by Martin Clifton)

Introduction (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 1: Mr. Caudle has lent five pounds to a friend (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 2: Mr. Caudle has been at a tavern with a friend, and is “enough to poison a woman” with tobacco smoke (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 3: Mr. Caudle joins a club – “The Skylarks” (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 4: Mr. Caudle has been called from his bed to bail Mr. Prettyman from the watch-house (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 5: Mr. Caudle has remained downstairs till past one, with a friend (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 6: Mr. Caudle has lent an acquaintance the family umbrella (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 7: Mr. Caudle has ventured a remonstrance on his day’s dinner: cold mutton and no pudding – Mrs Caudle defends the cold shoulder (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 8: Caudle has been made a mason – Mrs Caudle indignant and curious (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 9: Mr Caudle has been to Greenwich fair (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 10: On Mr. Caudle’s shirt buttons (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 11: Mrs Caudle suggests the her dear mother should “come and live with them” (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 12: Mr. Caudle having come home a little late, declares that henceforth “he will have a key” (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 13: Mrs Caudle has been to see her dear mother – Caudle on the “joyful occasion”, has given a party and issued a card of invitation (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 14: Mrs Caudle thinks it “high time” that the children should have summer clothing (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 15: Mr. Caudle again stayed out late. Mrs Caudle, at first injured and violent, melts (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 16: Baby is to be christened; Mrs Caudle canvasses the merits of probable godfathers (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 17: Caudle in the course of the day has ventured to question the economy of “washing at home” (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 18: Caudle, whilst walking with his wife, has been bowed to by a younger and even prettier woman than Mrs Caudle (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 19: Mrs Caudle thinks “it would look well to keep their wedding-day” (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 20: “Brother” Caudle has been to a Masonic charitable dinner. Mrs Caudle has hidden the “brother’s” cheque-book (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 21: Mr. Caudle has not acted “like a husband” at the wedding dinner (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 22: Caudle comes home in the evening, as Mrs Caudle has “just stepped out, shopping” On her return, at ten, Caudle remonstrates (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 23: Mrs Caudle “wishes to know if they’re going to the sea-side, or not, this summer – that’s all (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 24: Mrs Caudle dwells on Caudle’s “cruel neglect” of her on board the “Red Rover”. Mrs Caudle so “ill with the sea”, that they put up at the Dolphin, Herne Bay (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 25: Mrs Caudle, wearied of Margate, has “a great desire to see France” (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 26: Mrs Caudle’s first night in France – “shameful indifference” of Caudle at the Boulogne custom house (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 27: Mrs Caudle returns to her native land. “Unmanly cruelty” of Caudle, who has refused “to smuggle a few things” for her (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 28: Mrs Caudle has returned home. The house (of course) “not fit to be seen”. Mr Caudle, in self-defence, takes a book (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 29: Mrs Caudle thinks “the time has come to have a cottage out of town” (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 30: Mrs Caudle complains of the “Turtle Dovery”. Discovers black beetles. Thinks it “nothing but right” that Caudle should set up a chaise (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 31: Mrs Caudle complains very bitterly that Mr. Caudle has “broken her confidence” (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 32: Mrs Caudle discourses of maids-of-all-work and maids in general. Mr. Caudle’s “infamous behaviour” ten years ago (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 33: Mrs Caudle has discovered that Caudle is a railway director (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 34: Mrs Caudle, suspecting that Mr. Caudle has made his will, is only “anxious as a wife”, to know its provisions (Martin Clifton)

Lecture 35: Mrs Caudle “has been told “ that Caudle has “taken to play” at billiards (Martin Clifton)

Lecture the Last: Mrs Caudle has taken cold; the tragedy of thin shoes (Martin Clifton)

Postscript (Martin Clifton)

The audiobook Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures falls under the genres of Humorous Fiction. It is written by Douglas William Jerrold.

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Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures