This work explores systematically and in depth, the first ten years of Punch, the popular Victorian periodical, especially as it mirrored the interests and mind-set of its predominantly middle-class audience. Richard D. Altick shows how Punch's editorial and pictorial contents drew from numerous streams of popular and middlebrow culture, which it blended into a distinctive weekly product, often imitated but never equalled. At every point, Altick describes Punch's humorous treatment of events, public personalities, and current issues - frivolous or serious - against a background of historical evidence culled from the London Times and other contemporary documents.