Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890

Punch was the undisputed king of British satire in the Victorian era, and this March 1890 issue proves why. Volume 98 captures a moment when London society was certain of its own permanence yet oddly nervous about the century's end. The magazine's legendary cartoons skewer the idle rich lounging in theater boxes, while its verse dismantles social climbers with surgical precision. Here you'll find the Corinthian Lady, that glamorous figure of ambiguity, mingling with politicians whose pomposity practically begs for illustration. The wit remains startlingly fresh: these writers understood that the follies of the powerful make the best comedy, and their targets, the vain, the corrupt, the self-important, remain recognizable types in every era. This isn't a museum piece. It's a sharp little knife held up to 1890s England, and it still cuts.