Cruikshank, Thackeray, and the Victorian Eclipse of Satire

Although some of the satiric energy of the 1790s carried over into the first decades of the following century, by 1850 satire had been eclipsed by other forms. This essay traces steps in the process by which satire ceased to be a genre-determining force in graphic art and in narrative, focusing first on George Cruikshank's contributions to the Comic Almanack (1835­53) and then on William Makepeace Thackeray's contributions to Punch (1843­48). Partly as a result of Thackeray's own actions, Vanity Fair (1847­48) was the last major British work for a generation that was primarily satiric.