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. 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.