[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> John Leech —> Next]
Mr. and Mrs. Caudle
John Leech
1846
Wood-engraving
duodecimo page
Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures, "Lecture VIII — Mrs. Caudle indignant and curious" (p. 43).
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Man and wife one, indeed! I should like to know how that can be when a man’s a mason — when he keeps a secret that sets him and his wife apart? Ha, you men make the laws, and so you take good care to have all the best of ’em to yourselves: otherwise a woman ought to be allowed a divorce when a man becomes a mason: when he’s got a sort of corner-cupboard in his heart — a secret place in his mind — that his poor wife isn’t allowed to rummage!
‘Caudle, you sha’n’t close your eyes for a week — no, you sha’n’t — unless you tell me some of it. Come, there’s a good creature; there’s a love. I’m sure, Caudle, I wouldn’t refuse you anything — and you know it, or ought to know it by this time. I only wish I had a secret! To whom should I think of confiding it, but to my dear husband? I should be miserable to keep it to myself, and you know it. Now Caudle?
‘Was there ever such a man? A man, indeed! A brute! — yes, Mr. Caudle, an unfeeling, brutal creature, when you might oblige me, and you won’t. [Lecture VIII, "Caudle Has Been Made a Mason — Mrs. Caudle Indignant and Curious," pp. 42-34, in the 1907 edition, 37 in the 1866 edition]
Here John Leech's three-quarter page wood engraving of the Caudles in bed complements Keene's original Punch illustration depicting Mrs. Caudle's conjuring up in her imagination a vision of a Masonic parade, "Lodge, indeed! Nice goings on, I dare say" in this Eighth Lecture in the 1907 edition, which contains every serial illustration:
The Illustrations are all by Charles Keene (1866) with the exception of those by John Leech and Richard Doyle, printed in italics, which appeared with the 'Lectures' as they were originally issued in the columns of Punch, January-November 1845. ["List of Illustrations," 1907 edition, page 1]
These incidental Leech illustrations are usually just initial-letter vignettes such as Initial 'O' (page 152) and Initial 'T' (page 157). He also, however, provided a tailpiece featuring a weeping cherub to complement the death of Mrs. Caudle: The End (page 190), and several regular illustrations such as Mr. and Mrs. Caudle at the Sea-side (page 122) and Mr. Caudle enjoys his Brandy-and-Water (page 126).
"Curtain Lecture." World-Wide Words: Investigating the English language across the globe. http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-cur1.htm
Jerrold, Douglas William. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. London: R. Brimley Johnson, 1866.
Jerrold, Douglas William. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1856.
Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures and Other Stories and Essays. Intro. Walter Jerrold. London, Toronto, and New York: Henry Frowde Oxford U. P., 1854, rpt. 1907.
Kelly, Richard. "Mrs. Caudle: A Victorian Curtain Lecturer." University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. 38, Number 3 (April 1969): 295-309. Project Muse http://muse.jhu.edu/article/559417/pdf.
Spielmann, Marion Harry. History of 'Punch'. London and New York: Cassell, 1895.
Sutherland, John. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal: Stanford U. P., 1989.
Created 4 September 2017
Last modified 21 May 2024