Shorthouse later identified himself with "the new Oxford school of High Churchmen", but he preferred the freedom and reason of the Anglican church to the authority over private judgement that he saw exercised by Roman Catholicism.

[1] Shorthouse spent ten years up to 1876 working on his first book, John Inglesant, which initially appeared privately.

[1] However, as an encyclopedist notes, "Its revenge plot – in which Inglesant pursues his brother's murderer – is less important than the hero's spiritual journey and assertion of the claims of the Anglican Church.

Though said to be deficient in its structure as a story and unappealing to the general public, it fascinated people by the charm of its style, by a "dim religious light", with which it was suffused, and by occasional striking scenes.

[2] Shorthouse dedicated John Inglesant to Rawdon Levett, his friend and fellow teacher at King Edward's School, Birmingham.

[2] Shorthouse's other novels, The Little Schoolmaster Mark (1883), Sir Percival (1886), The Countess Eve (1888), A Teacher of the Violin (1888) and Blanche, Lady Falaise (1891)[4] have some of the same characteristics, but were less successful than the first.