The Circumlocution Office of Washington”
Twain’s Interaction with Dickens’s Bureaucratic Satire
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13044580 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Allison Scheidegger Reising (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 24-45 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Thought (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2161-1580 • E-ISSN: 2161-1599 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/739110 |
| OpenAlex | W7127701015 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
This article explores how Mark Twain’s satires of American bureaucracy draw on Charles Dickens’s popular satire of British bureaucracy through his fictional presentation of the Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit. The comparison between the British and American bureaucratic satires of Dickens and Twain, respectively, offers unique insight into American literary and political conceptions of progress and bureaucratic institutions. I trace Twain’s borrowing of Dickens’s Circumlocution Office themes and strategies in order to argue that Twain’s characters interact with corruption in a very different way than do Dickens’s. Whereas Dickens’s satire depicts bureaucratic nonsense as something to be endured or escaped, Twain’s satire turns the focus inward and prompts readers to consider how the particularly American spirit of speculation can interact dangerously with both bureaucratic corruption and the seemingly boundless opportunities of the American frontier
Bureaucracy · Language change · Nonsense · Order (exchange · Politics · American Literature and Humor Studies · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Thomas Hardy Literature Studies
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |