A knockout: Punch Magazine

The cartoons in Punch, says Helen Walasek, were like "plums in a pudding", enriching a magazine that for nearly two centuries encapsulated with satire the spirit of Britain.

As manager of the Punch Cartoon Library, Walasek has written the introduction and meticulously selected a remarkable collection of 2,000 of the finest and funniest illustrations from a title that has influenced so much of the modern media, both in this country and abroad. Though Punch closed in 2002, its drawings remain in great demand and Walasek hopes that this new volume will "keep the Punch flame burning".

According to Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, who still owns the title after a failed attempt to keep it on sale at the news-stands, the Punch archive is "a national treasure". In a foreword to the new book, he writes: "[Punch's] long and rich heritage of humour is perhaps best represented by the thousands of incomparable cartoons printed in its pages over 160 years."

Punch was able to feature the talents of such comic writers as William Thackeray, PG Wodehouse and more recently the late Alan Coren. But it is the cartoons that have left the strongest legacy. Artists such as John Leech, who was with Punch at its outset in 1841, and Charles Keene, who made such an impact on the Impressionists that Degas collected his work and Whistler described him as "the greatest English artist since Hogarth". Keene's complex drawings were passed on to wood engravers who would replicate the illustration as a carving that would be inked for printing.

Punch could call on EH Shepard, the "Winnie the Pooh" illustrator who is less known as a political cartoonist for the satirical magazine in the Thirties, and Rowland Emett, whose many claims to fame included creating the car Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Another great, HM Bateman, will be remembered for his series "The man who...", while Pont (real name Graham Laidler) was reknown for the theme "The British Character" and Norman Thelwell produced 1,500 illustrations for Punch, specialising in equine themes .

Though it was aimed predominantly at the middle-classes, Walasek says Punch had "progressive views" on issues such as immigration in the 1960s. "It was pretty conservative but on that subject it wasn't at all," she says.

Punch had an enormous following overseas, with the Tsar of Russia and the Emperor of Germany among its devotees. In colonial India there were 70 magazines with the word "punch" in their titles, the most famous being Avadh Punch, which ran for 47 years and was fiercely satirical of imperialist Britain. According to the Indian historian Partha Mitter: "No single humorous publication made a deeper impression on colonial India than the English magazine Punch."

At home, historian Asa Briggs has noted that during the Second World War Punch was able to "recapture the mood of the period perhaps more evocatively than any other source".

Walasek points out that many of the themes introduced by Punch illustrators in Victorian times are equally relevant to contemporary Britain. For example, a Leech cartoon in 1853, could have been inspired by a recent copy of NME, referring as it does to the new youth trend of having skull and skeleton designs on shirts.

The earliest Punch cartoons were destroyed by the engraving process, but 1,500 older drawings are preserved in the Punch Collection and Archive, which is housed in the British Library. The Punch Cartoon Library, behind Harrods in Knightsbridge, London, has complete sets of the magazine dating back to its first edition in 1841.

The library makes its money by supplying old Punch cartoons for use in documentaries, history books and exam papers, reflecting the political and social mood of the country during the 19th and 20th centuries. A favourite is Peter Birkett's take on the television show Dr Who, showing Daleks thwarted in their attempts at global domination by a close encounter with some stairs.

Among more recent greats to have worked on the magazine are the St Trinian's and Molesworth creator Ronald Searle and the still prolific Tony Husband and Michael Heath (who contributes a cartoon to this supplement under the name 'Castro', see page 3).

This will be the first collection of Punch cartoons to be published since 1991. "There are lots of fans out there who keep on asking us 'When are you next going to publish a book?'" says Walasek. "It's long overdue."

The Best of Punch Cartoons will be published by Prion on 1 October, priced £30. Punch Cartoon Library, www.punch.co.uk, 0207 225 6710, punch.library@harrods.com