Satire
Knickerbocker's History of New York
Washington Irving, an author, biographer, historian, and diplomat, completed his first major work, a satire of contemporary local history an…
Zadig or the Book of Fate
Zadig, ou La Destinée, ("Zadig, or The Book of Fate") (1747) is a famous novel written by the French Enlightenment philosop…
The Relentless City
A satiric novel of manners written in Benson's classic style of gently poking fun at class structures and the people who fill them. This tim…
Hard Times
Charles Dickens' 1854 novel opens with the philosophy of education espoused by the eminently practical Mr. Gradgrind, who prizes "facts…
Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey is a hilarious parody of 18th century gothic novels. The heroine, 17-year old Catherine, has been reading far too many “hor…
The Way of All Flesh
The Way of All Flesh (1903) is a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler which attacks Victorian-era hypocrisy. Written between 1873 an…
Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four-act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first produced 22 February 1892 at the St James's Thea…
The Blazing World
The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish is, all at once, a satire, a treatise on natural philosophy, a work of proto-science fiction, and a …
Zuleika Dobson
A wickedly funny 1911 satire on undergraduate life in Edwardian Oxford' in which the entire student body of Oxford university including the …
Little Dorrit
Born in the Marshalsea Prison for Debtors, Amy—Little Dorrit—the daughter of the ruined, but self-respectful William Dorrit, has put her ent…
The Idiot
The Idiot is anything but, yet his fellow boarders at Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog’s home for single gentlemen see him as such. His brand of creati…
The Satyricon
Satyricon (or Satyrica) is a Latin work of fiction in a mixture of prose and poetry. It is believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius,…
2 B R 0 2 B
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a prolific and genre-bending American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, su…
The Rape of the Lock
The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellany in May 17…
Mrs. Warren's Profession
.Mrs. Warren's Profession is a play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1893, and first performed in London in 1902 but was banned after two p…
Goldsmith's Friend Abroad Again
This satire on the U.S.A.'s myth of being the "Home of the Oppressed, where all men are free and equal", is unrelenting in its pur…
The Proposal
The Proposal is a one act comic farce by Anton Chekhov. In Chekhov's Russia, marriage was a means of economic stability for most people. The…
Lucian's True History
One of the earliest works of science-fiction (nearly 2,000 years old). It has space travel (including war in space), lunar civilization, and…
Twilight Sleep
Wharton miraculously finds it possible to satirize the very rich while simultaneously showing compassion and even grudging admiration for so…
Yollop
Mr. Crittenden Yollop makes friends with the man who came to burglarize his home and sets out to help him return to where he really wants to…