Introduction

As the first collection of its kind, this anthology aims to reflect the richness and diversity of British satire from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While it is impossible to represent the entire scope of satirical writing from an era in a single volume, I have tried to select texts that touch on a wide range of issues and speak from a variety of perspectives. Thus, in the pages below, we hear from Paine-ites and Burkeans, feminists and misogynists, evangelicals and sinners. In tone, the texts range from ecumenical to chauvinist, wistful to blustering, Horatian to Juvenalian. And chronologically, the volume moves from the French Revolution and the rise of Pittite conservatism, through the Napoleonic wars and the Regency period, and into the Reform agitation of the 1820s and 1830s.