W. H. (William Hurrell) Mallock

Born in Devon in 1849, W. H. Mallock studied at Balliol College, Oxford, and went on to build a reputation as a novelist, essayist, and social critic. He is especially remembered for satirical writing that poked at the intellectual fashions of his time.

His best-known book is The New Republic (1877), a clever social satire based on the thinkers and talkers of late Victorian Britain. He also wrote on religion, politics, economics, and social order, often arguing from a conservative point of view and taking issue with socialism and other popular movements of his day.

Mallock died in 1923. Though some of his arguments are very much of their era, his work remains interesting for its lively style, its confidence in debate, and the window it offers into the literary and political life of Victorian and Edwardian England.