Richard D. Altick. Punch: The Lively Youth of a British Institution, 1841-1851. Columbus: Ohio
State University Press, 1997. 776 pp. $65.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8142-0710-9.
Reviewed by Sadie Clifford (Cardiff University)
Published on Jhistory (July, 2006)
Punch was a British comic periodical, both popular
and critically successful, established in 1841. It endured
for 160 years and published a number of significant authors and illustrators, such as William Makepeace Thackeray, P. G. Wodehouse, P. J. O’Rourke, Sir John Tenniel,
and E. H. Shepard. More than a dozen books and several
articles have appeared on the subject or aspects of it, and
the first history of Punch was published in 1895.
on explaining the meaning of its jokes, cartoons, caricatures, and serious political articles in relation to contemporary social values. It does this by contextualization. This is the book’s great strength; it brings together
so great an amount of circumstantial evidence that it is
able to explain jokes that are dependent upon a high level
of socio-cultural knowledge. The chapters are organized
in topical clusters, although in the middle part there is
some sagging into miscellany, perhaps reflecting the paThis new history has been reviewed at least twice
per’s subtitle, “The London Charivari,” (after Le Charibefore, with both reviewers praising its comprehensive- vari, the satirical paper of Paris, meaning cacophony in
ness. The author, Richard D. Altick, claims that Punch: French). Students of these topics will find deep cultural
The Lively Youth of a British Institution 1841-1851 is the understandings with which to enrich factual accounts,
“the first attempt to contextualise any periodical, serious although Altick responsibly points out his own limitaor light, in so great circumstantial detail” (p. xx). Its origtions here–it is not within his scope to attempt to cominality lies chiefly in this rich description of the sociopare Punch’s representation of satirical targets with less
political context, and the manner in which the audience partial portrayals. While the scale of his work more than
is identified. Numbering 776 pages and 31 chapters, it is justifies this limit on scope, it does prevent assessment of
a weighty volume (nearly 800g in fact). Altick is Regents’ the wider social significance of particular issues. For inProfessor of English at The Ohio State University and a stance, was Punch’s opposition to “Puseyism,” (a form of
winner of the Phi Beta Kappa’s Christian Gauss Award,
high Anglicanism close to Catholicism) worth the loss of
for The Presence of the Present (1991). He has written more
one of its best illustrators, the Catholic John “HB” Doyle?
than twenty monographs, including The Art of Literary
Research (1963), although he is possibly best known in
The serio-comic magazine achieved great success and
Britain for his 1957 work, The English Common Reader.
national significance within the first ten years of its foundation. It caught the mood of the mid-century, which was
Altick uses a qualitative historical method, in which beginning to develop that prudishness for which Victohis primary evidence is presented with extensive descrip- rianism is now a byword. While making pithy political
tion and quotations. The subject is treated thematically,
comment and social satire, it eschewed the grotesque, the
introducing the minor irritant of a coding system for refsexual scandal, the lavatorial (or rather, chamberpot) huerencing that requires the reader to repeatedly consult a mor of Regency cartoonists such as George Cruickshank
table at the back of the book. Altick considers Punch to and James Gillray. Maiden aunts and young ladies could
reflect changing social realities of the era, a “journalistic read it without fear; it was respectable enough to be seen
witness to history” (p. xxi), although he acknowledges reading on the train. In a competitive market (in the same
that it did not reflect a national consensus and its influperiod 845 periodicals were launched in London), Punch
ence is “unmeasurable” (p. 734). The approach centers
secured the support of the Times newspaper, which used
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the magazine as filler and feature material. Reviews in
highbrow publications such as the Westminster Review
and popular success with Thomas Hood’s “The Song of
the Shirt” (a radical rhyme against sweated needlework
published in Punch) brought it to the attention of influential readers such as Lord Palmerston, Elizabeth Barrett, Thomas Carlyle, Charlotte Bronte, Henry James, and
Emily Dickinson. At a time when circulation is difficult to assess, Altick’s approach to readership is based on
solid historical work. The above luminaries (and many
others) named Punch in diaries and letters. The extent to
which it was pirated, translated, and reviewed (in overseas as well as British publications) is painstakingly delineated. Using contemporary assessments, comparisons
with similar publications and the official Inland Revenue
accounting of stamps, Altick estimates Punch’s circulation to have risen from 22,795 in 1844 to 33,180 in 1850,
though there may have been more than five readers per
copy.
Altick’s careful examination of content on domestic
issues reveals that certain subjects have a long history
of being butts of satire. British readers will recognize
“Dad’s Army” jokes in Punch’s treatment of local militias, and the Queen’s husband was (and still is) a prominent satirical target, while the Queen herself escaped
(and generally still does) serious criticism. Particular
public figures, such as Henry Brougham MP and Colonel
Sibthorp MP, were repeated targets in the magazine’s
campaign against “privilege, corruption and humbug” (p.
xix). Other domestic topics for satire included the railway share bubble; sports and entertainments such as the
pleasure gardens and ballooning; metropolitan concerns
such as the traffic congestion, omnibuses, and advertising
vans; West End theater gossip and opera house impresarios; the new “lit and phil” societies; and low-quality literary genres such as “railway novels” and Oriental fantasy.
Yet Punch did not always poke fun; for example, when the
Great Exhibition was opened in 1851, it “served as the
Crystal Palace’s most enthusiastic publicity agent” (pp.
618-635).
Readers were presented with a wide variety of pastiche and puns, both visual and verbal, ornamentation,
doggerel, caricatures, and parodies drawing on modern
and classical literature. Yet these were held together by
the character of “Mr Punch,” a “fiction of a distinctive,
quirky personality presiding over the paper” (p. 65), supported by the tradition of anonymous contribution and
use of the pronoun “we.”
In foreign affairs, however, Punch was less charitable.
Reflecting the norms of the age, it exhibited a casual prejudice against the Irish, Jews and Americans. Altick explains its therefore somewhat puzzling popularity among
American readers as “nostalgia” or “romantic dreaming”
for the “old home” (p. 27). Its Gallophobic attacks on
Louis Phillipe earned it a ban in France, which it publicized with pride. Women in politics were also considered
beyond the pale (unless they worked for the Anti-Corn
Law League).
Within Punch’s multiformity, Altick identifies class
as a key issue. The paper espoused somewhat radical
sympathies, supporting the repeal of the Corn Laws and
disseminating the belief that “the poor were victims of
oppressive classes and institutions” (p. 189), particularly
in Douglas Jerrold’s articles. Yet as it gained its middleclass audience, “the ferocity of [its] social criticism noticeably abated” (p. 234). However, it continued to use
class, as a comedic trope, and in its “satiric sociology,”
such as Thackeray’s “The Snobs of England,” which is
“one of the reasons its files are so valuable to historians”
(p. 493). Altick argues that its vulgarizations were not
intended to insult the lower orders, but to expose middleclass rituals for a “deflationary effect.” Yet the footman,
the urchin and the Cockney street sweeper were stock
characters, and it mocked the poor and illiterate. However, the most pilloried character (appearing more than
twenty times) was the beadle (a type of security officer).
Gentlemen of leisure (“swells,” “idlers,” or “mooners”) and
“gents” (those affecting the lifestyle of the swell without
the means) were objects of satire (pp. 505, 507). Professionals such as lawyers and medical students were also
mocked.
The above are merely highlights of this immensely
detailed work. Altick contributes not only to British media and social history, but even corrects the Oxford English Dictionary, identifying earlier uses of “rail” in a
racecourse context and a slang name for the Army and
Navy Club. He also casts doubt on the historical legend, still purveyed as truth by TV documentaries, of Sir
Charles Napier’s punning declaration of his conquest of
the Indian province of Sind (“Peccavi,” or “I have sinned”
in Latin). This comprehensive work may be best digested in small portions, but is occasionally leavened
with jokes inspired by Punch’s style. The magazine feared
that Puseyites might defect to “Rome en masse, as Punch
might have put it but didn’t” (p. 476), and it rejected teetotalism in a “light-hearted spirit” (p. 220). Its coverage
of a Post Office spying scandal is described as “the letteropening flap, so to speak” (p. 256). The best-known joke
about Punch is that it was never funny. This book shows
how its jokes, however weak, can be hugely valuable to
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the historian of British cultural values, and demonstrates
important and well-executed methods for understanding
them and its readers.
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Citation: Sadie Clifford. Review of Altick, Richard D., Punch: The Lively Youth of a British Institution, 1841-1851.
Jhistory, H-Net Reviews. July, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12032
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