Though Joseph Henry Shorthouse wrote four other novels, some short stories, and a few essays, his reputation rests almost solely on his "philosophical romance," John Inglesant (1880). The novel was published and widely circulated in the supercharged atmosphere of the 1880s, an atmosphere of religious uncertainty and tension generated by the impact of the new science on philosophical thought and the erosive influence of the "Higher Criticism" on religious orthodoxy. This atmosphere was intensified by an awareness of the divisions resulting from the ritualist debate, and the rise of a vocal Evangelical party, in the Church of England. In addition, the loss of some prominent Anglicans (like Newman) to the church of Rome aroused, in Anglicans and Dissenters alike, a fear of possible Roman Catholic domination.

Thus, in a period of such widespread religious concern, John Inglesant, with its cultural and religious themes, found favor with a large, "earnest...