Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures

Every night, after Job Caudle pretends to sleep, his wife Margaret begins. What follows is a relentless barrage of complaints, criticisms, and grievances about everything from his spending to his relatives to his breathing. The poor shopkeeper lies in silent torment, unable to protest without unleashing another hour of lecturing. Yet here is the cruelest twist: when Margaret finally dies, Job discovers he cannot sleep without her voice in the darkness. His memory of those endless lectures has become so woven into his being that their absence is unbearable. So he does what any sensible Victorian husband would do: he writes them all down, with commentary, for the benefit of future generations. Originally serialized in Punch magazine, these curtain lectures are sharp, funny, and quietly devastating satire about the peculiar dependencies of middle-class Victorian marriage.