A succession of pantomimes supplied by him to one or other of the minor theatres, under the nom de plume of Francisco Frost, soon acquired for him a reputation as the contriver of these dramatic whimsicalities.

He was educated at Brixton, Ealing and Lichfield, and accompanied his father to New York in 1831, where Elizabeth's husband Thomas Hamblin ran the Bowery theatre.

[4] After his return to England, Blanchard visited the exhibition of Holland and Joyce's OxyHydrogen microscope in New Bond Street.

When his father died in 1835 when Edward was only 14 years old; shortly afterwards, he dropped out of school and joined a travelling "OxyHydrogen microscope" exhibition, even giving the lectures to the public himself on occasions.

[5] However, it did not pay well and he was eventually left stranded in the west of England; he managed to borrow half a crown from a scene-painter he had met in Bristol, and walked back to London in three days.

[7] He was paid only £2 per play when he started writing, and wrote advertisements for businesses and comic songs for clowns to supplement his income.

[17] He died on 4 September 1889 at Albert Mansions, Victoria Street, London, after a long illness described by the attending Doctor as "creeping paralysis".

[20] The memoir has been described as "a memorial of arduous and incessant struggles and, until near the end, of miserable pay" and "a delightful picture of one of the kindest, most genial and lovable of Bohemians – a man with some of the charm of Charles Lamb".