"Illuminated Initial 'P'" —;Charles Keene's third illustration forDouglas Jerrold's"Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures," 3rd edition (1866)

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Illuminated Initial "P"

Charles Keene

1866

Wood-engraving

6.8 x 5.2 cm, framed

Third illustration for Douglas Jerrold's Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures (first published in 1845): "The Introduction."

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Frontispiece: "Mr. Caudle, having come home a little late, declares that henceforth 'He will have a Key'."

Title-page and vignette

Douglas Jerrold

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated

Poor Job Caudle was one of the few men whom Nature, in her casual bounty to women, sends into the world as patient listeners. He was, perhaps, in more respects than one, all ears. And these ears, Mrs. Caudle —; his lawful, wedded wife as she would ever and anon impress upon him, for she was not a woman to wear chains without shaking them —; took whole and sole possession of. They were her entire property; as expressly made to convey to Caudle's brain the stream of wisdom that continually flowed from the lips of his wife, as was the tin funnel through which Mrs. Caudle in vintage time bottled her elder wine. There was, however, this difference between the wisdom and the wine. The wine was always sugared: the wisdom, never. It was expressed crude from the heart of Mrs. Caudle; who, doubtless, trusted to the sweetness of her husband's disposition to make it agree with him. ["The Introduction," p. xvi]

Commentary

The frontispiece and title-page vignette set the keynote, but allude to passages in which the reader hears only the voice of that scrupulous manager of domestic economy, Mrs. Caudle, although occasionally Job Caudle's comments sum up the gist of the "lecture." Here, Keene has supplemented the author's own voice, highly sympathetic towards the pathetic Job Caudle, with an image of his wife, patiently mending by lamplight, waiting for her errant husband to return home. If, as Jerrold remarks, Mrs. Caudle (no Christian name supplied, and therefore an extension of her husband) "was not a woman to wear chains without shaking them" (xv), the illustrator nevertheless shows her as the incarnation of domesticity. In fact, throughout the six-page introduction, Jerrold says very little about Mrs. Caudle, other than to describe her domestically tyrannizing poor, long-suffering, and aptly named Job. On the other, hand, as a New Man of the Sixties, illustrator Keene extends the text by offering a complementary view of "his lawful, wedded wife."

Bibliography

Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures, as Suffered by the late Job Caudle.Edited from the Original MSS. by Douglas Jerrold. With a frontispiece by Leech, and as motto on the title-page, "Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Fury's lap. —; Shakespeare." London: Punch Office; Bradbury and Evans, 1846.

Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures . Illustrated by John Leach and Richard Doyle. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1856.

Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. Illustrated by Charles Keene. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1866.

Last modified 19 November 2017