The 1910s was a decade in which theories of socialism, pacifi sm, and collectivism fl owered. Publicists and playwrights from Sidney Webb to George Bernard Shaw expressed not just belief in "utopianism" but a vigorous assault on the existing political and economic order. Less well known is how a group of Tory thinkers laid the foundations of a conservative counter-attack expressed with equal literary and intellectual brilliance. Foremost among them was W. H. Mallock. In The Limits of Pure Democracy he argued that the pseudo-populist leaders of the political party system promise everything but...

William Hurrell Mallock, a prominent British philosopher, wrote this 1878 English satire based upon the religious liberalism or scientific optimism of Arnold, Pater, Huxley, Tyndall, Ruskin, Jowett, and other leading Victorians. Dedicated to Violet Fane', this Peacockian symposium in novel-form introduces her as Mrs Sinclair. Other characters admittedly drawn from life are "Dr. Jenkinson" (Jowett), "Mr. Herbert" (Ruskin), "Mr. Storks" (Huxley) and "Mr. Stockton" (Tyndal), "Mr. Luke" (Matthew Arnold), "Mr. Rose" (Walter Pater). An important title in the history of utopian literature.. Mallock...