The first comprehensive survey of the rise of political caricature in the United Kingdom.   

The Profaned Pencil surveys the vivid and unruly world of British political caricature between 1600 and 1860. It follows the rise of graphic satire from polemical seventeenth-century broadsides to the exuberant prints of the Georgian era and the mass-market illustrated press of Victorian Britain. Caricature lay at the intersection of politics, art, and the commercial print trade, with satirical images functioning as both entertainment and political commentary. From attacks on monarchs and ministers to reflections on class, gender, and war, caricatures became a powerful and popular means of informing public debate. Illuminating the artists, technologies, and markets that propelled this artform’s spread, Helen Pierce provides new insights into how caricature mediated authority, dissent, and identity over two and a half transformative centuries.