He earned a large income from the "Telegraph" and other sources, but he never could keep his money. In 1879, Sala wrote a bawdy pantomime called "Harlequin Prince Cherrytop", which subsequently was adapted as a monologue sometimes called "The Sod's Opera" and is often falsely attributed to Gilbert and Sullivan. Three years later, he published a pornographic novel of flagellation erotica entitled "The Mysteries of Verbena House" (under the pseudonym Etonensis) and a travelogue of North America. In 1892, when his popular reputation was at its height, he started a weekly paper called "Sala's Journal", but it was a disastrous failure; and in 1895 he had to sell his library of 13,000 volumes. Lord Rosebery gave him a civil list pension of £100 a year, but he was a broken-down man, and he died at Brighton, England, on 8 December 1895.