JERROLD, DOUGLAS WILLIAM

born Jan. 3, 1803, London died June 8, 1857, London English playwright, journalist, and humorist. Jerrold achieved success in the theatre with Black-Eyed Susan (1829), a nautical melodrama based on an 18th-century ballad by John Gay. He also mastered a special brand of Victorian humour in a series of articles called Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures (1845) for Punch magazine, to which he was a regular contributor. More plays with a nautical theme followed Black-Eyed Susan, but Jerrold was ambitious to write high comedy, at which he was less successful. A prolific journalist, he wrote much that is bitter and personal, in sharp contrast to the geniality of his Curtain Lectures, which appeared in book form (1846) and were regularly reprinted.