Irony make the truth of past situations obvious to all. Other prominent examples of outcomes now seen as poignantly contrary to expectation include: Irony is often used in literature to produce a comic effect. This may also be combined with satire. For instance, an author may facetiously state something as a well-known fact and then demonstrate through the narrative that the fact is untrue. Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" begins with the proposition "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." In fact, it soon becomes
For Want of a Nail (novel) two hundred years' worth of people, places, economics, finance, technology, politics and war was spelled out. Despite being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, the book gained little notice from Sobel's fellow historians. Alternate history was considered a subgenre of science fiction, so it was from fans of science fiction that the book gained its initial audience, and "For Want of a Nail" gained the status of a classic work of alternate history. For Want of a Nail (novel) For Want of a Nail: If Burgoyne Had Won at Saratoga is an alternate history novel published in 1973 by the American