Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914

VariousProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8

Word count: 78K words
Chapters: 8

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.Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 by VariousAuthor: Various,Language: English, Class: AP: General Works: Periodicals, Release Date: Sep 11, 2007

Editor's review

This is an electronic reprint of the February 18, 1914 issue of the long-running British humor weekly Punch, a public-domain periodical. Its value lies in offering a snapshot of British humor, comic caption writing, and social commentary from one specific moment, letting readers observe the topics, jokes, and modes of expression that engaged middle-class British readers on the eve of World War I. As a single issue, it is not suited to systematic cover-to-cover reading but works well as a primary source for cultural history and humor studies, or for English majors practicing close reading of satirical texts. Readers should note that the jokes, cartoon captions, and political satire depend heavily on the context and figures of the time, and some content may seem alien or even offensive today. Read it with historical background in mind, as a window into late Edwardian British public opinion rather than as contemporary humor.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Researchers in British cultural and press history who need a sample single issue
English majors practicing close reading of satire and period humor
Casual readers interested in Edwardian British social life
Readers doing public-domain curation or digital-humanities text analysis

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a continuous story or a full-length book
Beginners unfamiliar with 1910s British politics who find the satirical context hard to follow
Readers sensitive to the stereotypes that may appear in period humor

Reading tips

Look up major British events around February 1914 first, then read the political satire with a sense of what the jokes target.
Read selectively by section, prioritizing cartoon captions and short commentaries; there is no need to go page by page through ads and miscellany.
Note unfamiliar allusions and figures and look them up together, so you do not misread the target of satire for lack of context.
Read alongside other British papers from the same period to compare how the same events were described and satirized.

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.

FAQ

Is this a complete book or a single magazine issue?

It is the February 18, 1914 issue of the weekly Punch, an electronic reprint of a single issue containing that issue's articles, cartoon captions, and columns—not a full-year bound volume or a monograph.

Can I read it without knowing British history?

You can, but the political satire will be hard to follow. It helps to learn the British political and social background on the eve of World War I before reading specific passages; cartoon captions and short jokes are easier entry points.

Is the humor still appropriate today?

Some jokes rely on the context, figures, and stereotypes of the time and may seem alien or offensive today. Treat it as a historical text and focus on the mindset and modes of expression it reflects, rather than as a model of contemporary humor.

Is it suitable for English study?

It suits intermediate and advanced English readers as extended reading, offering practice with satire, puns, and period journalistic expression. But the text is dense with political allusions and outdated usage, so it is not recommended as a stand-alone beginner textbook.

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

Various Author

Various is not a real person but a collective attribution used in book cataloging and databases for works with multiple authors, commonly applied to anthologies, compilations, or publications with too many contributors to list individually. On this Chinese book site, this attribution covers as many as 3,387 titles, spanning encyclopedic entries, historical documents, and trial records. Representative works include several volumes of the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the record of the trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Available public information is limited: nationality, birth and death dates, and common categories are not clearly recorded, making it difficult to summarize a unified writing style or personal biography. Readers should understand it as a cataloging convention rather than a single author.