Punch Magazine Book first ever publications

Hi all, I am wondering whether there is any value in this first ever published punch album 1841 July-Dec.

Thanks all !!

 

This one has a different color cover: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Punch-or-t...=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

I'd check if there were library editons, but normally they were bound by the libraries themselves.

 

The photos are a bit difficult to see, but if it is bound in dark blue with gold lettering, then I think that it is a standard binding offered by the pubisher when you had gathered the issues for half a year. Publications like Punch and The Illustrated London News were usually kept and then bound into volumes for subscribers' own libraries. As for value, I suggest you check auction sites, Amazon, and also www.bookfinder.com (click on Extra Options and specify the date). I've just found a volume on Bookfinder listed for £45. The political cartoons and social comment are difficult now to understand without knowledge of the current events, but I can recommend you look out for the volumes for the American Civil War era. Punch depicted Lincoln as a scarecrow in the cartoons and seemed to think that the war was senseless as slavery was morally wrong but would have died out naturally as an inefficient system, overtaken by industry and capitalism. Punch finally redeemed itself when they published a very moving and repentant poem after the assassination of Lincoln, recognising Lincoln's greatness of character and important place in history. The language is flowery but it moves me to tears.

 

I've got an interesting bound (several) volumes that lampoon the California gold rush "diggins", must look at it again one of these decades

 

Great I have all of the albums released so will look for the Lincoln related ones

 

I collect old newspapers because it is really interesting to see how things were viewed at the time, without the benefit of hindsight. Punch was aimed at an upper class subscriber and, slavery apart, was more in sympathy with the artistocratic, rural Confederate society than the industrial, multi-cultural, ambitious North. I have the issues of the Illustrated London News of the period, and it is interesting that they had reporters "imbedded" with the Confederate troops and were also generally more sympathetic to them, but they also reported large gatherings of English workers in places like Manchester, who were expressing anti-slavery views, and had fellow-feeling for the slaves. Did you know that Britain almost went to war with the Union over their boarding a British vessel on the high seas and the removal of two Confederate ambassadors? Luckily it was smoothed out with diplomacy, but how different history might have been!

 

Very good - Thanks - I have come into a whole load. In fact most of the Punch publications. They are interesting and like the views they have on US presidents and UK Prime Ministers. Some of the 'jokes' are a little hard to understand but a good bed read.

 

Yep - Quite a few - no including the 1840's I have

 

What a lot of Punch! You will soon become an expert on Victorian politics! I hope they don't haunt your dreams.