Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 148, February 17th 1915

VariousProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3

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. 148, February 17th 1915 by Various. Author: Various. Language: English. Class: AP: General Works: Periodicals. Release Date: Nov 14, 2013

Editor's review

This is the electronic edition of the February 17, 1915 issue of the British satirical humor weekly Punch, a periodical document from the First World War. Its contents consist mainly of topical satire, cartoon captions, short commentaries and light verse; the language is humorous and steeped in the context of its time, making it primary material for observing wartime British social attitudes, propaganda tone and everyday humor. Its value lies not in systematic argument but in the vivid cross-section of an era it offers: readers can see how the war entered the jokes, advertisements and political commentary of popular periodicals. Because it is a single issue, the contents are scattered and lack background notes, creating some distance for readers unfamiliar with First World War British history and the English slang of the period. It is suitable as supplementary historical material, as course material for cultural history, or as a reading sample of English humorous style, rather than as a general history.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Historians studying British social culture and wartime propaganda during the First World War
Enthusiasts interested in British satirical periodicals and the history of cartoons
Learners with good English who wish to study the language of the period through original periodicals
Teachers and graduate students who need primary popular documents as course material

Not a good fit for

Beginner readers seeking a systematic understanding of the course of the First World War
Readers unfamiliar with the First World War background and English slang who find the satirical context hard to follow
Periodical researchers expecting a complete bound volume or consecutive issues

Reading tips

First learn about the Western Front and the domestic situation in Britain in early 1915, then read the satirical passages to understand the circumstances behind the jokes.
Read selectively by section: look at the cartoons and short commentaries first, then the political satirical verse; there is no need to read every item from beginning to end.
Look up names, institutions and slang as you go and make marginal notes, building up a store of wartime English expressions.
Compare with other British newspapers and periodicals of the same period to observe how the same event is narrated differently in different publications.

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

What kind of publication is Punch?

Punch, or The London Charivari is a famous British satirical humor weekly known for its cartoons, satirical short pieces and current-affairs commentary. This issue is the single number published on February 17, 1915, during the First World War, and its contents carry a clear wartime context.

Can I understand it without background knowledge of the First World War?

You can read it, but you will lose much of the satire. The jokes and cartoon captions often depend on the people, events and English slang of the time; without background you may see only the literal meaning. It is advisable to read a brief chronology of British wartime events in 1915 first.

Does this ebook contain multiple issues?

According to the information provided, this is the electronic text of a single issue, Volume 148 of Punch for February 17, 1915, not a full-year bound volume or a collection of multiple issues. For continuous research you will need to look up the adjacent issue numbers separately.

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.