Punch

My parents didn't go in for cartoons or picture books but my father gave this to my mother in the late 50ies and I was fascinated with it from an early age. Many of the cartoons, especially the Victorian ones, made little sense to me but I returned to the book again and again over the years, and as I grew older and acquired more knowledge, I began to understand more and more of the captions.

I know Political Cartoons are not really meant to be funny - although Zapiro always manages - but I show more can't help feeling sorry for the Victorians, lumbered with Dickens and Leech and others of that ilk: they must have been very hard up indeed for laughs.

A wonderful, wonderful book and a marvellous way of imbibing English history painlessly. show less

Lush and elaborate volume from when Punch was in full tide, and its artists were masters of their work. If you want a peek inside upper middle class Edwardian England, this is an essential.

Never was all that keen on the magazine, but most of these stories were quite amusing.

Not a really top-flight collection of Punch cartoons, nor a complete roster of the artists (David Langdon is missing, e.g.), but a decent collection all the same.