Douglas William Jerrold (1803–57) was an English dramatist, journalist, and humorist whose work appeared in prominent journals of his time. None of his plays has survived, even though he had contemporaneous success as a playwright.
Born in London, Jerrold joined the navy as a midshipman in 1813, apprenticed with a printer, became a dramatic author of the Surrey Theatre, and then worked as a compositor on the Sunday Monitor 1819 before becoming its drama critic.
Jerrold achieved success in the theatre with Black-Eyed Susan (1829,) a nautical melodrama that draws on the patriotic tar (sailor) while critiquing authoritarianism in the British Navy.
Jerrold also edited the Illuminated Magazine 1843–44, Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1845–48, Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper 1846–48 and from 1852 Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper.
From 1841, Jerrold was one of the contributors to the newly launched humorous journal Punch, writing under the pseudonym ‘Q.’ He mastered an exclusive brand of Victorian humor in a series of articles called “Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures” (1845) for Punch.
A prolific journalist, Jerrold wrote much that is bitter and personal, in sharp contrast to the cheerfulness of his “Curtain Lectures,” which appeared in book form (1846) and regularly reprinted. His comedies, The Bride of Ludgate (1831,) Time Works Wonders (1845,) and The Catspaw (1850,) were less successful. William Makepeace Thackeray illustrated Jerrold’s studies of Men of Character (1838.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Douglas William Jerrold
Self-defense is the clearest of all laws, and for this reason: lawyers didn’t make it.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Defense, Lawyers
The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. If I were a grave digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a good deal of enjoyment.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Pleasure
I never hear the rattling of dice that it does not sound to me like the funeral bell of the whole family.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Conscience, though ever so small a worm while we live, grows suddenly into a serpent on our deathbed.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Conscience
A coquette is like a recruiting sergeant, always on the lookout for fresh victims.
—Douglas William Jerrold
In this world truth can wait; she is used to it.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Truth
Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Optimism, Luck
We love peace, but not peace at any price.—There is a peace more destructive of the manhood of living man, than war is destructive of his body.—Chains are worse than bayonets.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Peace
Love’s like the measles, all the worse when it comes late in life.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Love
In the intercourse of the world people should not take words as so much genuine coin of standard metal, but merely as counters that people play with.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Language
Treason is like diamonds; there is nothing to be made by the small trader.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Revolution
A conservative is a man who will not look at the new moon, out of respect for that “ancient institution,” the old one.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Habitual intoxication is the epitome of every crime.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Drunkenness
Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in stranger’s gardens.
—Douglas William Jerrold
The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Exercise
Dress it as we may, feather it, daub it with gold, huzza it, and sing swaggering songs about it, what is war, nine times out of ten, but murder in uniform?
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: War
O, glorious laughter! thou man-loving spirit, that for a time doth take the burden from the weary back, that doth lay salve to the weary feet, bruised and cut by flints and shards.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Laughter
Some people’s hearts are shrunk in them, like dried nuts. You can hear ’em rattle as they walk.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Heart
Honest bread is very well, it’s butter that makes the temptation.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Not peace at any price! Chains are worse than bayonets.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Peace
Fortunes made in no time are like shirts made in no time; it’s ten to one if they hang long together.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Fortune
In all of the wedding cake, hope is the sweetest of plums.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Marriage
Blessed be the hand that prepares a pleasure for a child, for there is no saying when and where it may bloom forth.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Children
He kissed her and promised. Such beautiful lips! Man’s usual fate—he was lost upon the coral reefs.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Kisses
The last word is the most dangerous of infernal machines, and the husband and wife should no more fight to get it than they would struggle for the possession of a lighted bombshell.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Family, Marriage, Words
The character that needs law to mend it, is hardly worth the tinkering.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Character
Marriage is like wine. It is not properly judged until the second glass.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Marriage
The sharp employ the sharp.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Work
Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Gardens, Gardening
Many a man who now lacks shoe-leather would wear golden spurs if knighthood were the reward of worth.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Worth
Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Soldiers looked at as they ought to be are to the world as poppies to corn fields.
—Douglas William Jerrold
If slander be a snake, it is a winged one. It flies as well as creeps.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Slander
The superior man is he who develops in harmonious proportions, his moral, intellectual, and physical nature. This should be the end at which men of all classes should aim, and it is this only which constitutes real greatness.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Man, Intelligence
How beautiful can time with goodness make an old man look.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Age
If an earthquake were to engulf England tomorrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubble, just to celebrate the event.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Britain
Wedlock’s like wine, not properly judged of till the second glass.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Marriage
It is wonderful how near conceit is to insanity!
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Conceit
Religion is in the heart, not in the knees.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Prayer
The surest way to hit a woman’s heart is to take aim kneeling.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Topics: Heart
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