Historical Archive 1841–1992
The Writings of Punch
Punch published some of the finest comic writers in the English language,
among them William Thackeray, P G Wodehouse, E M Delafield and Alan
Coren, who are profiled below. Some much-loved and enduring humor classics
began life as series in Punch, such as George and Weedon Grossmith’s Diary
of a Nobody (1888–1889), 1066 and All That by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman
(1920s) and Geoffrey Willans’ Molesworth (1940s). John McCrae’s In Flanders
Fields, arguably the best-known poem of World War I, was first published in
Punch on December 8, 1915.
Apart from work by its literary stars, Punch’s prose, poetry and regular features
make it an important source for the study of events and life over the 19th
and 20th centuries in Britain and abroad. Its parliamentary sketches, for
example, look behind official accounts of the political maneuvers of the times,
beginning with Essence of Parliament introduced by Shirley Brooks in 1855
(and reprinted as far afield as Australia’s Melbourne Argus), and later subtitled
Extracts from the Diary of Toby MP, when Henry Lucy took over the column
in 1881. During World War II Impressions of Parliament give an almost daily
record of proceedings in the House of Commons, unforgettably distilling the
atmosphere as Churchill galvanized the nation and MPs debated minutiae of
the price of beer and the War Budget.
Just a few of the many writers who contributed to Punch were:
• Douglas Jerrold
• Virginia Graham
• Somerset Maugham
• Anthony Powell
(who was Literary Editor)
•A A Milne
(who was Deputy Editor
for a time)
• Sylvia Plath
• A P Herbert
• P J O’Rourke
• Basil Boothroyd
• Penelope Fitzgerald
(who contributed film
reviews – her father was the
editor E V Knox)
• Joyce Grenfell
• Miles Kington
• Tina Brown
• Keith Waterhouse
• Joan Bakewell
• Richard Mallett
• Dilys Powell
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William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)
Now recognized as one of the English language’s greatest writers, W M Thackeray moved in
the same literary circles as the founders of Punch. He began contributing to the magazine in
June 1842, not only as a jobbing writer, but on occasion as a cartoonist, and became a salaried
member of Punch’s editorial staff. His series for the magazine, such as ‘The Snobs of England’
that appeared over 1846–1847, made a huge impression, bringing the word ‘snob’ with its modern
meaning into general use. But with the publication of Vanity Fair (1847), and Pendennis (1848)
Thackeray had become a literary heavyweight and had outgrown Punch. Finding the demands
of writing for Punch and some of its attacks on public figures too much, in December 1851 he
resigned, though he occasionally attended the weekly editorial dinners at the Punch Table.
P G Wodehouse (1881–1975)
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse is recognized as one of the finest comic writers of the 20th century,
and his portrayals of life among the British upper classes, especially his immortal creations,
Jeeves and Wooster, continue to be transformed into other media. A journalist and author of
over 90 books, Wodehouse also worked as a lyricist and playwright with such luminaries as
Jerome Kern and George Gershwin, splitting his time between Britain and the USA after 1914.
Wodehouse’s contributions to Punch came in two periods – between 1902 and 1914 and from 1953
to 1963, apart from a few pieces published before the outbreak of WWII. When the German Army
arrived at Le Touquet in 1940 where the author was then living, Punch alerted its readers but
noted in a Wodehousian vein that the writer ‘still retains, we understand, possession of his house,
and is, as comfortable as the trying circumstances permit.’ Wodehouse was made a member of
the Punch Table in 1960.
E M Delafield (1890–1943)
Edmée Elizabeth Monica de la Pasture Dashwood was better known by her pseudonym E M
Delafield. By the time she began contributing to Punch in the early 1930s, she was already
a well-known writer with her work appearing not only in print, but on the radio and in the
theater. But her most enduringly popular work, in Britain and across the Atlantic, was the semiautobiographical comic novel Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930). The Provincial Lady, which went on
to spawn three sequels, was illustrated by the Punch artist Arthur Watts, a friend of Delafield’s.
Delafield continued to contribute to Punch up to her untimely death in 1943. Her contributions
during WWII such as ‘Little Fiddle-on-the-Green Still Smiling’ of 1939, recorded the impact of the
war on the Home Front with characteristic wit.
Image credit: Mary Evans Picture Library
Alan Coren (1938–2007)
Coren has been dubbed a national treasure and the funniest man in Britain. He joined Punch as
assistant editor in 1963 and stayed for 24 years, becoming the magazine’s editor in 1978 via stints
as literary editor and deputy. Former staff members and contributors remember his editorship as
a time of laughter, particularly during the weekly lunches at the Punch Table, where celebrities of
the day now came to dine. A prolific author, it was his collection of columns from Punch written
in the guise of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (1974) that made him a household name. During his
time at Punch he was also TV critic for The Times and a columnist at the Daily Mail and later the
Mail on Sunday. A long-serving panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz, the program originally
began in 1977 as a contest to pit Punch against its rival Private Eye – as the era’s most famous
satirical magazines – with Coren and Richard Ingrams, editor of Private Eye, captaining
the competing teams.
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