Ebook Satire in the Victorian Novel

If the following monograph were to be presented from the point of View of a proponent, the author would be put triply on the defensive in relation to the theme. For, from one cause or another, the trio of terms in the title lies under a certain blight of critical opinion. Satire, being a thistle pricked from the thorny branches of reproof, cannot expect to be cherished in the sensitive human bosom with the welcome accorded to the fair daffodil or the sweet violet. It must be content to be admired, if at all, from a safe distance, with the cold eye of intellectual appraisal.