Books with title Curtain Lectures

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Douglas William Jerrold (London 3 January 1803 - 8 June 1857) was an English dramatist and writer. Jerrold's father, Samuel Jerrold, was an actor and lessee of the little theatre of Wilsby near Cranbrook in Kent. In 1807 Douglas moved to Sheerness, where he spent his childhood. He occasionally took a child part on the stage, but his father's profession held little attraction for him. In December 1813 he joined the guardship Namur, where he had Jane Austen's brother Francis as captain, and served as a midshipman until the peace of 1815. He saw nothing of the war save a number of wounded soldiers from Waterloo, but he retained an affection for the sea. The peace of 1815 ruined Jerrold's father; on 1 January 1816 he took his family to London, where Douglas began work as a printer's apprentice, and in 1819 he became a compositor in the printing-office of the Sunday Monitor. Several short papers and copies of verses by him had already appeared in the sixpenny magazines, and a criticism of the opera Der Freischütz was admired by the editor, who requested further contributions. Thus Jerrold became a professional journalist. Jerrold's figure was small and spare, and in later years bowed almost to deformity. His features were strongly marked and expressive, from the thin humorous lips to the keen blue eyes, gleaming from beneath the shaggy eyebrows. He was brisk and active, with the careless bluffness of a sailor. Open and sincere, he concealed neither his anger nor his pleasure; to his sailor's frankness all polite duplicity was distasteful. The cynical side of his nature he kept for his writings; in private life his hand was always open. In politics Jerrold was a Liberal, and he gave eager sympathy to Lajos Kossuth, Giuseppe Mazzini and Louis Blanc. In social politics especially he took an eager part; he never tired of declaiming against the horrors of war, the luxury of bishops, or the iniquity of capital punishment. Douglas Jerrold is now perhaps better known from his reputation as a brilliant wit in conversation than from his writings. As a dramatist he was very popular, though his plays have not kept the stage. He dealt with rather humbler forms of social world than had commonly been represented on the boards. He was one of the first and certainly one of the most successful of the men who in defence of the native English drama endeavoured to stem the tide of translation from the French, which threatened early in the 19th century to drown original native talent. His skill in construction and his mastery of epigram and brilliant dialogue are well exemplified in his comedy, Time Works Wonders (Haymarket, 26 April 1845). The tales and sketches which form the bulk of Jerrold's collected works vary much in skill and interest; but, although there are evident traces of their having been composed from week to week, they are always marked by keen satirical observation and pungent wit.

Excerpt from Mrs. Rasher's Curtain LecturesI wish you would quit them everlasting puns. It's vulgar to pun a very low species of wit, indeed; I heard Mrs. De Longue say so, the night I was to her reception. You can't help it; you must interlard your conversation with 'em? Good Lord, Rasher! Whatever else you do, leave your business be hind you when you come home. I declare, the very silk curtains in the parlor have an odor of it! Don't bristle up so? There it comes again it's enough to drive a woman mad! You can't help cutting up you're so used to it? N ow, look a-here, husband, we're going to settle this matter about the house this morning, or we're not going to settle it. If you'll quit that nonsense and listen to reason, I'll tell you what my ideas are; but if you don't, I won't say another word. Then you guess you'll keep on? And if you do you won't get me to keep still. That's just what you want; you'd be glad if I never opened my lips, though which of us is capable of speaking with the most pro priety I'll leave other people to judge.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.