Confessions of a Young Man by George Moore

Introduction by Floyd Dell

INTRODUCTION

These "Confessions of a Young Man" constitute one of the mostsignificant documents of the passionate revolt of English literature againstthe Victorian tradition.It is significant because it reveals so clearlythe sources of that revolt.It is in a sense the history of an epoch棴anepoch that is just closing.It represents one of the great discoveries ofEnglish literature:a discovery that had been made from time to timebefore, and that is now being made anew in our own generation棴the discovery ofhuman nature.

The reason why this discovery has had to be made so often is that it shockspeople.They try to hush it up; and they do succeed in forgetting aboutit for long periods of time, and pretending that it doesn't exist.Theyare shocked because human nature is not at all like the pretty pictures we liketo