The novel is a satire consisting almost entirely of dialogue and mocking most of the important figures then at Oxford University, with regards to aestheticism and Hellenism.

The book became a best seller in its time and retains much of its humour and satirical bite today.

As author David Daiches wrote in 1951, "If we can read through The New Republic without at one point or another being made to feel a little foolish, we are wise indeed."

Reading Wilde, Querying Spaces: An Exhibition Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Trials of Oscar Wilde notes that, as Linda Dowling has observed, "Mr. Rose" is "the first in a long line of popular depictions of effeminate English aesthetes such as Gilbert's Bunthorne and Du Maurier's Postlewaite and Maudle".

The New Republic inspired a number of novels in which representative gatherings of intellectuals discuss important issues of the day in a country-house setting, including Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson's A Modern Symposium (1905), John Buchan's A Lodge in the Wilderness (1906) — set in a multi-millionaire's lodge on the East Kenyan Plateau[3] — and Ronald Knox's Sanctions (1924).