Punch’s Pocket Book Archive

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Following on from The Punch Historical Archive (1841–1992) launched in 2015 under the direction of Clare Horrocks (Liverpool John Moores University) and Seth Cayley (Gale Cengage Publishers), Punch’s Pocket Book Archive aims to produce a digital scientific edition of the collection of some 39 volumes of Punch’s Pocket Book (1843-1881), i.e. approximately 5,000 pages.

Aimed primarily at a wealthy, urban and mobile readership, this diary of around a hundred pages offered, under an elegant soft leather binding, an assortment of abundantly illustrated humorous writings. Structured in two distinct parts, one informative and the other recreational, it included, in addition to the calendar, memento and other directories, a unique selection of anecdotes, fables and stories which, for forty years, made it successful. Most of the writings were the work of Mark Lemon, Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, William Makepeace Thackeray, Percival Leigh, Horace Mayhew, Sterling Coyne, while the images and vignettes which adorned the pages were by Richard Doyle, John Leech, Charles Keene, and later John Tenniel and Linley Sambourne. These same artists were also responsible for creating, for each of the volumes, a folding frontispiece engraved with etching and then painted by hand, the main selling point of Punch’s Pocket Book.

The resources available on the website thus created will be likely to offer new tools to researchers specializing in the study of the Victorian press, but also to arouse the interest of international researchers in the humanities and social sciences. A true platform for political, intellectual and cultural life whose publication spans some forty years, Punch’s Pocket Book opens the way to several scientific fields: history of the press, history of ideas, cultural studies, sociology, literature or history of art. As part of this project, the use of text editing and image annotation tools from CERTIC and the PDN may also attract the attention of European specialists in digital humanities. Finally, it will also be about capturing the interest of a wider audience, in particular through highlighting the artistic dimension of this publication. As it develops, this project may give rise to national and international scientific initiatives, such as study days, conferences and/or traveling exhibitions (Caen Normandy, London (British Library), Manchester Metropolitan University, Liverpool John Moores University).

Punch’s Pocket Book Archive is an international initiative supported by the House of Research in Human Sciences of Caen Normandy University, as part of the CaeSAR call for projects, “Excellence in all its forms” program won in July 2023 (France 2030 investment plan). Its international partners are The Long Nineteenth-Century Network at Manchester Metropolitan University (Dr Sonja Lawrenson) and Punch and the Nineteenth Century Periodical Press Project at Liverpool John Moores University (Dr Clare Horrocks).

En collaboration avec l’équipe scientifique et le CERTIC, le pôle Document numérique assure, pour cette collection littéraire et archivistique, le contrôle des numérisations, le choix de la modélisation des données textuelles (XML TEI), le développement des environnements de saisie nécessaires à l’édition du texte (interface de saisie dans le logiciel d’édition XMLMind XMLEditor), l’adaptation du moteur d’affichage MaX pour la publication des données (textes et images) et la réalisation des dispositifs de navigation dans les sources (moteur de recherche, index).

Le CERTIC conçoit les outils de gestion, d’annotation et d’exposition des images et de leurs annotations scientifiques. Le grand nombre d’éléments iconographiques des almanachs constitue en effet une des originalités du corpus et a justifié la création d’outils spécifiques à l’annotation des gravures sur les images, dans le respect des standards (IIIF).

Un blog rend compte des actualités du projet : https://ppbka.hypotheses.org/