Mr. Punch in Wig and Gown: The Lighter Side of Bench and Bar

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.7
Word count
119K words
Chapters
12

Tags

English Originals Essays and MiscellanyLaw Portrait GalleryCivic AwarenessComplex HumanityMoral DilemmaHumor ReliefCase AnalysisSatirical StylePopular NarrativeLegal CultureSocial Observation

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Mr. Punch in Wig and Gown: The Lighter Side of Bench and Bar by Hammerton and Marks. Author: , Language: English, Class: PN: Language and Literatures: Literature: General, Criticism, Collections, Release Date: Feb 22, 2015

Editor's review

This book is Mr. Punch in Wig and Gown: The Lighter Side of Bench and Bar, compiled by Hammerton and Marks and digitized by Project Gutenberg. Judging by the title and classification, it is an anthology of legal and courtroom humor centered on Mr. Punch cartoons or comic material, falling under general literature and criticism. Its value lies in its light-hearted presentation of the everyday side of the legal profession, making it suitable for readers interested in the British humor tradition, the cultural history of law, and illustrative material. The Project Gutenberg edition is easy to search and cite, and can serve as lively supplementary material for classes or as source material for essays on legal culture. It should not be read as a systematic legal history or a serious work of jurisprudence, but rather as a humorous document bearing the marks of its era: its jokes, professional stereotypes, and cartoon language need to be understood in historical context. Readers are advised to dip into passages related to "court" and "lawyer" and to compare them with humor periodicals of the same period to appreciate the editorial taste.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read selected passages on courts and lawyers by theme; there is no need to read from cover to cover.
  2. Pay attention to the historical background of the cartoons and text while reading, and you may find it helpful to draw on general knowledge of British legal history.
  3. Note page numbers or chapters when making excerpts to facilitate citation and classroom sharing.
  4. Read alongside humor periodicals of the same period and observe how editors selected and arranged the jokes.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a cartoon collection? Judging by the title and classification, it is a compilation of humorous material centered on Mr. Punch, dealing with courtroom and lawyer themes, and may contain both cartoons and text. The materials do not specify the ratio of images to text in detail, so it is best to rely on the actual content shown on the Project Gutenberg page.
Can I understand it without a legal background? Yes. The book is positioned as "the lighter side" and is not a professional legal work. Some jokes involve judicial procedures and professional references, but readers can understand them with brief general knowledge of British legal history, and this does not affect the overall enjoyment.
Is this book suitable for classroom use? It is suitable as engaging introductory material. Teachers can select short passages related to images of courts and lawyers and discuss how humor shapes professional stereotypes. It is not recommended as a main textbook for legal history or literary history.
What are the practical advantages of the Project Gutenberg edition? The Project Gutenberg edition is a free electronic text that makes it easy to search for keywords, copy passages, and read offline. Readers can quickly locate words such as "court" and "lawyer," making it suitable for gathering and citing material.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.