Braggart and bully, the immortal Punch has delighted audiences for centuries. On street corners and at country fairs, crowds of English children cheer for this paragon of unrepentant wickedness, shouting encouragement and applauding his gleeful buffoonery. Punch struts and boasts, cracking jokes and heads, while the casualties mount: Judy, his shrieking wife; the interfering policeman; the hoodwinked hangman; and the devil himself, beaten to death.
Scholarly yet entertaining, this chronicle traces the origins of puppetry's famous duo from Punch's birth in Italy to his travels across...