Glasgow Looking Glass in Context: Visual Satire and Early Illustrated Print
Glasgow Looking Glass in Context: Visual Satire and Early Illustrated Print
The Glasgow Looking Glass was a short-lived satirical periodical published in the city during the 1820s. It is remarkable for its extensive and characterful illustrations, which have led it to being described as “the World’s first comic” [1]. Published bi-weekly, and then later monthly, it capitalised on the then-new technology of lithographic printing to seamlessly integrate text and image in a single design matrix. The periodical satirised local and global issues of the day, gently poking fun at personalities, fashion, politics and behaviour. In her thesis on the Glasgow Looking Glass, Danielle Schwertner argues that conceptually, it tapped into the new magazine market to provide audiences with a sort of “quick, all-encompassing content” in a visual medium, also found textually in contemporary literary magazines. [2]
The Glasgow Looking Glass was a short-lived satirical periodical published in the city during the 1820s. It is remarkable for its extensive and characterful illustrations, which have led it to being described as “the World’s first comic” [1]. Published bi-weekly, and then later monthly, it capitalised on the then-new technology of lithographic printing to seamlessly integrate text and image in a single design matrix. The periodical satirised local and global issues of the day, gently poking fun at personalities, fashion, politics and behaviour. In her thesis on the Glasgow Looking Glass, Danielle Schwertner argues that conceptually, it tapped into the new magazine market to provide audiences with a sort of “quick, all-encompassing content” in a visual medium, also found textually in contemporary literary magazines. [2]
The periodical was initially published as an uncoloured and unbound folded sheet of three or four pages, marketed at two price points: one shilling per copy for a ‘common impression’; and one shilling and sixpence for the ‘best impression’. In the sixth issue, the Glasgow Looking Glass became the Northern Looking Glass, presumably to aid marketability in other northern cities outside of Glasgow. And presumably to aid comprehension of the, sometimes Glasgow-centric, satire, the final page became a text crib offering the main stories on which the caricatures were based. From the ninth issue, another important technical change took place: lithography was replaced by copperplate engraving and etching for the illustrations, and – perhaps one of the motivations for the change – letterpress, for the ever-lengthening final text page. Correspondingly, the price point increased by six pence for both common and best impressions; three grades of covers were offered to encase issues already collected (from 1 shilling and sixpence for standard up to five shillings for ‘best’); and ‘beautifully [hand] coloured’ issues began to be sold at six shillings per issue. Despite best efforts to market widely, after just seventeen issues, the periodical folded, with stock, including the copper plates, sold off. And while another publisher picked up the baton, with a ‘new series’, altering the layout slightly, this too was unsuccessful, ceasing after just two issues.
As Schwertner has acknowledged, surviving copies of the Glasgow/Northern Looking Glass are scarce, even in the locations where it was once sold. In part, this is likely on account of the fragile, unbound format in which copies circulated, militating against survival [3]. All University of Glasgow copies are now found in collected sets, bound in the bespoke ‘covers’, and separately sold. In 2026, the University of Glasgow is making available two such collected bound sets of issues: the first includes ‘beautifully coloured’ copies of all seventeen issues, alongside four uncoloured issues of the Looking Glass, a later London periodical, inspired by its Glasgow namesake, and drawn by the Glasgow Looking Glass’s primary artist, William Heath. The second set, bound in a different bespoke cover from the first (whether standard, ‘superior’, or ‘best’, you are free to examine and decide), includes all seventeen issues of the periodical, this time uncoloured (and similarly, whether ‘common’ or ‘best’ impression, you may examine and decide). Alongside this, the volume includes copies of both issues of the new series of the Northern Looking Glass, uncoloured
Both digitised sets derive from the collection of Robert Wylie (d.1921), chairman of the Glasgow firm of furnishers, Wylie & Lochhead. Bequeathed to the University of Glasgow in 1921, the collection of around 1,000 volumes is particularly rich in items relating to Glasgow history – fitting for one of the founding members of The Glasgow Bibliographical Society [4]
Bringing together these two full runs of digitised issues of the Glasgow/Northern Looking Glass for the first time offers researchers new opportunities. For those interested in material and production questions, uncoloured and coloured issues can now be compared side by side, and two versions of the covers can also be compared. Danielle Schwertner outlines a whole range of areas which a study of the content and illustrations of the Glasgow/Northern Looking Glass might inform, from questions of gender, race, and class, to those of politics, fashion and reading culture. For the first time, the caricature texts will be fully text searchable, allowing researchers to explore the use of different words, topics, figures and themes.
Robert Maclean, Assistant Librarian, University of Glasgow.
Published July 2026.
The periodical was initially published as an uncoloured and unbound folded sheet of three or four pages, marketed at two price points: one shilling per copy for a ‘common impression’; and one shilling and sixpence for the ‘best impression’. In the sixth issue, the Glasgow Looking Glass became the Northern Looking Glass, presumably to aid marketability in other northern cities outside of Glasgow. And presumably to aid comprehension of the, sometimes Glasgow-centric, satire, the final page became a text crib offering the main stories on which the caricatures were based. From the ninth issue, another important technical change took place: lithography was replaced by copperplate engraving and etching for the illustrations, and – perhaps one of the motivations for the change – letterpress, for the ever-lengthening final text page. Correspondingly, the price point increased by six pence for both common and best impressions; three grades of covers were offered to encase issues already collected (from 1 shilling and sixpence for standard up to five shillings for ‘best’); and ‘beautifully [hand] coloured’ issues began to be sold at six shillings per issue. Despite best efforts to market widely, after just seventeen issues, the periodical folded, with stock, including the copper plates, sold off. And while another publisher picked up the baton, with a ‘new series’, altering the layout slightly, this too was unsuccessful, ceasing after just two issues.
As Schwertner has acknowledged, surviving copies of the Glasgow/Northern Looking Glass are scarce, even in the locations where it was once sold. In part, this is likely on account of the fragile, unbound format in which copies circulated, militating against survival [3]. All University of Glasgow copies are now found in collected sets, bound in the bespoke ‘covers’, and separately sold. In 2026, the University of Glasgow is making available two such collected bound sets of issues: the first includes ‘beautifully coloured’ copies of all seventeen issues, alongside four uncoloured issues of the Looking Glass, a later London periodical, inspired by its Glasgow namesake, and drawn by the Glasgow Looking Glass’s primary artist, William Heath. The second set, bound in a different bespoke cover from the first (whether standard, ‘superior’, or ‘best’, you are free to examine and decide), includes all seventeen issues of the periodical, this time uncoloured (and similarly, whether ‘common’ or ‘best’ impression, you may examine and decide). Alongside this, the volume includes copies of both issues of the new series of the Northern Looking Glass, uncoloured
Both digitised sets derive from the collection of Robert Wylie (d.1921), chairman of the Glasgow firm of furnishers, Wylie & Lochhead. Bequeathed to the University of Glasgow in 1921, the collection of around 1,000 volumes is particularly rich in items relating to Glasgow history – fitting for one of the founding members of The Glasgow Bibliographical Society [4]
Bringing together these two full runs of digitised issues of the Glasgow/Northern Looking Glass for the first time offers researchers new opportunities. For those interested in material and production questions, uncoloured and coloured issues can now be compared side by side, and two versions of the covers can also be compared. Danielle Schwertner outlines a whole range of areas which a study of the content and illustrations of the Glasgow/Northern Looking Glass might inform, from questions of gender, race, and class, to those of politics, fashion and reading culture. For the first time, the caricature texts will be fully text searchable, allowing researchers to explore the use of different words, topics, figures and themes.
Robert Maclean, Assistant Librarian, University of Glasgow.
Published July 2026.
[1] See The World's First Comic and Its New Digital Format for more.
[2] Schwertner, Danielle (2023) "Nothing was further from his intention than to offend": an analysis of visual satire, identity and stereotypes in the Glasgow/Northern Looking Glass caricature periodical, 1825–1826. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow. Pp. 14-15.
[3] Schwertner, p. 54.
[4] University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections, Wylie Collection, https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/archivespecialcollections/discover/specialcollectionsa-z/wyliecollection/ [Accessed 13/5/26]. Note that Archives & Special Collections also holds the business records of Wylie & Lochhead and Wylie & Lochhead Ltd, see House of Fraser Archives https://www.housefraserarchive.ac.uk/ [Accessed 13/5/26]
Footnotes
[1] See The World's First Comic and Its New Digital Format for more.
[2] Schwertner, Danielle (2023) "Nothing was further from his intention than to offend": an analysis of visual satire, identity and stereotypes in the Glasgow/Northern Looking Glass caricature periodical, 1825–1826. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow. Pp. 14-15.
[3] Schwertner, p. 54.
[4] University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections, Wylie Collection, https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/archivespecialcollections/discover/specialcollectionsa-z/wyliecollection/ [Accessed 13/5/26]. Note that Archives & Special Collections also holds the business records of Wylie & Lochhead and Wylie & Lochhead Ltd, see House of Fraser Archives https://www.housefraserarchive.ac.uk/ [Accessed 13/5/26]