“Title-page, First Edition” (“Punch,” 1840)

[Victorian Web Home —> Illustration —> William Newman —> Periodicals —> Punch]

Title-page

William Newman (1817-1870)

Week ending 17 July 1841

Punch, Vol.I (1841)

Newman shows a jovial Mr Punch stringing up a grotesque devil, to illustrate the new journal's agenda: to attack "the principle of evil by increasing the means of cultivating the good," a message soon spelled out in writing. Ironically, it takes a specific stand against the death penalty. [Commentary continues below; mouse over the text for links.]

Whole front cover

Image scan and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee

[This image may be used without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose without prior permission as long as you credit (a) the Internet Archive and the Kahle/Austin Foundation, and (b) link to this page in a web document or cite it in a print one.]

Punch's Programme

As we hope, gentle public, to pass many happy hours in your society, we think it right that you should know something of our character and intentions. Our title, at a first glance, may have misled you into a belief that we have no other intention than the amusement of a thoughtless crowd, and the collection of pence. We have a higher object. Few of the admirers of our prototype, merry Master Punch, have looked upon his vagaries but as the practical outpourings of a rude and boisterous mirth. We have considered him as a teacher of no mean pretensions, and have, therefore, adopted him as the sponsor for our weekly sheet of pleasant instruction....

We now come to the last great lesson of our motley teacher — the gallows! that accursed tree which has its root in injuries. How clearly Punch exposes the fallacy of that dreadful law which authorises the destruction of life! Punch sometimes destroys the hangman: and why not? Where is the divine injunction against the shedder of man’s blood to rest? None can answer! To us there is but one disposer of life. At other times Punch hangs the devil: this is as it should be. Destroy the principle of evil by increasing the means of cultivating the good, and the gallows will then become as much a wonder as it is now a jest. [1]

Bibliography

"The Moral of Punch." Punch, Vol. 1 (1841). Internet Archive. Sponsored by the Kahle/Austin Foundation. Web. 16 May 2022.

Created 16 May 2022