Mark Knight has been capturing the politics, culture, soul and history of Australia and beyond in his political cartoons, illustrations and caricatures for two decades.

Now, for the first time, the multi-award-winning artist's funny, whimsical and witty work has been brought together in this full-colour, high-quality book.

Over the years, Knight's cartoons in the Herald Sun have illuminated issues and events ranging from last year's Federal Election campaign (his Walkley Award-winning Benefits of a Bedtime Story showed a fatherly federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham reading a story to a group of press gallery journalists depicted as children), and the hoopla and hype surrounding Shane Warne, to the Iraq war and the Asian tsunami.

As well as more than 200 cartoons, many of them annotated with Knight's retrospective comments, The Mark Knight Collection also includes examples of the cartoonist's political caricatures, excerpts from his illustrated travel diaries, and a selection of his paintings and sketches.