The Onion co-founder recommends 5 satires that roasted the world (for the better)

In 1599, John Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Richard Bancroft, the Bishop of London, issued an edict that became the “ most sweeping and stringent” instance of censorship in the early modern period. Now known as the “Bishops’ Ban,” it came with a list of books that should “be taken wheresoever they maye be found” and “bee presentlye brought to the Bishop of London to be brunte.” The list included some unlicensed histories and plays, but satire dominated the auto-da-fé — notably works by Joseph Hall, John Marston, and Thomas Middleton. This made the true target of the Bishops’ ire clear.

Less discernible is why the genre provoked such an aggressive response, as Whitgift and Bancroft provided no reason for the censorship. Scholars have their theories: Maybe the Bishops feared the satirists of their day were being too open in criticizing the Elizabethan state. Maybe their attacks on powerful, influential people didn’t sit right with the Bishops.

Maybe the works propagated cultural ideologies that the Bishops felt threatened social order. Possibly they were too raunchy for the Bishops’ delicate sensibilities. Jonathan Swift, the Irish writer and essayist, once described satire as a “sort of glass [mirror] wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own, which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.” But sometimes, as was likely with our censorious Bishops, we do see faces we recognize in satire’s reflection.

Everyone has vices, follies, and hypocrisies that may rightly be held up for ridicule. The same is true for the beliefs we hold, the people we follow, and the ideals we cherish. Nonetheless, we can all learn from the genre.

I recently spoke with Scott Dikkers, co-founder and former editor-in-chief of _The Onion_ and the author of the _How to Write Funny_ series. He told me that satire’s timeless lesson is to show “us how the world could be better and [provide] a record of how we didn’t follow that advice.” We all need to read and share books, he adds, “because it’s really our only hope.” Four issues delivered, plus every article, video, and event unlocked and ad-free. Inspired by the Bishops, but in a contrary spirit, I invited Dikkers to create his own list of satires.

These books offer readers not only a chance to laugh at the absurdity found in the world but also help us consider how to amend it. For that reason, we proclaim these should “be taken wheresoever they maye be found and bee presentlye brought to thou bóchord, and reade.” **_Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_****by Mark Twain (1885)** During the U.S. Reconstruction, many Southern Americans reimagined the antebellum era through whitewashed narratives longing for the glory days.