The Best of Punch Cartoons

Book excerpt: "This enormous selection, which must rank as one of the best cartoon compilations of all time, has been specially selected by Helen Walasek of the Punch Cartoon Library and former curator of the Punch Collection. Leafing through its pages you are transported from the parlors and drawing rooms of the 19th century, with insolent servants and arrogant aristocrats, through the smoggy streets and crowded omnibuses of the cities, to the open fields of the country where "townies" shelter from the rain to the scorn of the locals, and would be fishermen and golfers find frustration." "The First World War brings a brash patriotism that leads to a cynical look at the hedonism of the Twenties, pokes fun at the new suburbanites and celebrates the growth of mass entertainment and travel. With the coming of World War Two all the restrictions, foibles and fears of wartime on the Home Front and in the Armed Forces are reflected in Punch's cartoons. But the fun returns with the post-war boom. Consumerism develops, then it's into the Swinging Sixties - popular music, modern art and youth in rebellion. The excesses of the Eighties are chronicled and Nineties are chronicled too. Mr. Punch's cartoonists were there to observe it all, and yon can too, in the pages of this magnificent tome." --Book Jacket.