Punch’s Pocket Book Archive – How the Project Came to Be

A Flood and a Gift

A renowned scholar of the Victorian periodical press, Goulven Guilcher owned a substantial collection of Punch volumes. When his garage was flooded by heavy rain showers, he turned to the Victorianist community for help, asking whether his Punches could be stored in a dry place. Although Françoise Baillet could only offer limited help, Goulven was kind enough to send her a little envelope containing a collection of tiny cardboard covers bearing the title Punch’s Pocket Book. These little gilt-edged cards, all of which presented a hand-coloured version of Mister Punch, considerably whetted her scholarly appetites. The next steps were fruitful discussions on the Victoria List, a few weeks at the British Library and an article for the Victorian Periodicals Review, which Françoise readily sent to Goulven, as a thank you for opening these fascinating research perspectives for her. That is when the most unexpected and amazing gift of her career arrived: a whole box containing an almost complete run of the little annuals! At a time when Digital Humanities has become a major mode of current research, sharing this unexplored treasure with the academic community and the wider public seemed essential. Punch’s Pocket Book Archive project was born.

Punch’s Pocket Book Archive Goes International

With the kind help of Brian Maidment, an expert on the social history of the Georgian and Victorian eras with a specialism in illustrated books, prints and ephemera, contact was established with the Long Nineteenth-Century Network, which brings together academics and students specializing in history, literature, and the arts. At Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), Emma Liggins, Sonja Lawrenson and other researchers and curators agreed to share their expertise on nineteenth century art and material culture. The 2023 Conference of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, hosted at Caen Normandie, provided an excellent launching platform for Punch’s Pocket Book Archive. A roundtable entitled “A Crossover between Media: Punch’s Pocket Book (1843-1881), from Material to Digital,” allowed Emma, Sonja and Françoise to present the venture to the international scholarly community. Later that same year, a Manchester Metropolitan study day devoted to “Print Media and Visual Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century” gave more scope to the project. This is where we were introduced to Clare Horrocks, an established researcher in the field of Victorian popular culture at Liverpool John Moores University. Clare had been the Academic Advisor for the Punch Historical Archive (1841-1992) in collaboration with Seth Cayley (Gale Cengage Publishers) in 2015. Finally, a dedicated postdoctoral fellowship attached to the project was created and, in September 2024, we welcomed Bethany Qualls, an English literature PhD specializing in transhistorical media studies and eighteenth-century print culture.

Innovative Technologies

Punch’s Pocket Book Archive is supported by Caen Normandie’s Pôle Document Numérique (PDN). At the Pôle, Julia Roger and Subha-Sree Pasupathy have placed their expertise and skills at the service of our project. At the University of Caen Normandy, the Centre for Information and Communication Technologies (CERTIC) has developed and made available specific methods and tools for digital image processing, designed for the management and annotation of Punch’s Pocket Books’ archives.

From the Printed Page to the Screen

Punch’s Pocket Book Archive project is scheduled to unfold over a period of five years ending in August 2029. Throughout this period, the collection of 39 pocket books (1843-1881) will be scanned, transcribed, annotated, edited, and uploaded onto the proposed website by instalments of 3 to 9 volumes: 3 volumes in 2024-25, and 9 volumes every year from 2025-26 to 2028-29. These repeated phases being interdependent, all collaborators and subcontractors involved – technical, commercial and academic – will work in close consultation. Events will be organised, involving MA and PhD students as well as postdoctoral researchers throughout the five years of the project. The present pilot website is the result of the first phase of the project, during which we worked on three distinct editions of Punch’s Pocket Book: 1845, 1855 and 1875. These three editions have been chosen to illustrate the evolution of the content of the pocket books over the years.

Acknowledgements

Punch’s Pocket Book Archive project is supported by the French government through funding managed by the National Research Agency under the France 2030 initiative (reference ANR-23-EXES-0001) and the Normandy Region.

This publication received the support of a Patrick Leary Field Development Grant awarded by the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals from the bequest of the Eileen Curran estate.

The International Laboratory Partnership signed between Caen Normandie and Liverpool John Moores provided further support to the venture (2024-2026).

The following institutions have kindly supported a Punch’s Pocket Book Archive event: The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and the British Association for Victorian Studies, Société Française d’Études Victoriennes et Édouardiennes (SFEVE).

WordPro, Puduchery (India) provides text transcription and encoding in XML-TEI for each volume.

Service Commun de la Documentation at Université de Caen Normandie as well as the MRSH also provide material support for the Punch’s Pocket Book Archive. In particular thanks to the Communications team, administrative staff, and the Centre de la Documentation, with gratitude to Marie-Laure Compant La Fontaine for her contribution, and to Carine Lecerf for taking on the larger part of scanning these volumes.

This project has greatly benefited from the advice and generous help of the whole RSVP community.

We also thank the following people more specifically: Goulven Guilcher, Patrick Leary, Brian Maidment, Lamri Adoui, Pascal Buléon, James Mussell, Fionnuala Dillane.