Samuel Butler
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Everyman's library volume 118
Modern Library classics
Everyman's library. Fiction volume 895A
More Series...
Modern Library classics
Everyman's library. Fiction volume 895A
More Series...
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Originally written in the 1880s and published posthumously in 1903, a semiautobiographical novel examines the complex relationships that exist in the Pontifex family as they reflect the hypocrisy of middle-class life in Victorian England. Written between 1873 and 1884 but not published until 1903, a year after Butler's death, his marvelously uninhibited satire savages Victorian bourgeois values as personified by multiple generations of the Pontifex...
2) Erewhon
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Setting out to make his fortune in a far-off country, a young traveller discovers the reemote and beautiful land of Erewhon and is given a home among its extraordinarily handsome citizens. But the traveller soon discovers that this seemingly ideal community has its faults.
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Published in 1872, this scathingly satirical utopian novel follows the exploits of a young traveler who finds himself in a strange and remote country where bizarre customs are the rule. Based on Butler's experiences in New Zealand, and influenced by his reading of Darwin, Erewhon is also notable for its early depiction of machine intelligence.
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One of Samuel Butler's most famous works, "Erewhon" is the story of a fictional country in which Butler satirizes the Victorian society of the time in which he lived. An anagram of the word "nowhere," "Erewhon" upon first impression appears to be a utopian society. However as the country is further detailed is becomes apparent that this is clearly not the case. The titular setting of the novel is loosely based on Butler's experiences as a young man...
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'Erewhon', set in a thinly disguised New Zealand, ended with the escape of its protagonist from the native Erewhonians by balloon. In the sequel, narrated by his son John. Higgs returns to Erewhon and meets his former lover Yram, who is now the mother of his son George. He discovers that he is now worshipped as "the Sunchild". He finds himself in danger from the villainous Professors Hanky and Panky, who are determined to protect Sunchildism from...
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"The only thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction between the organic and inorganic is arbitrary." So writes Samuel Butler is his work of biological philosophy, Unconscious Memory, where he presents his theories of the mind through the lens of his criticism of established scientific ideas.
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Published in 1878, this is the first book in which Butler attacks Darwinism, and sets out an alternative, neo-Lamarckian theory which explores the role of memory in shaping organisms. Butler initially wrote the book as a tribute and complement to Darwin's theory. Darwin chose to ignore the attack, but Butler continued to challenge the scientific establishment with three additional books.
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Published posthumously in 1904, this collection of essays, taken largely from Butler's work published in The Universal Review in 1890, covers a wide range of subject matter-reflective of Butler's diverse interests. Included among the essays are "Ramblings in Cheapside," "Thought and Language," and "The Deadlock in Darwinism," which is a summary of Butler's views attacking Darwinism.
10) Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later: Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son
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Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son (1901) is a satirical novel by Samuel Butler, forming a belated sequel to his Erewhon (1872). The Cambridge History of English and American Literature judges that it "has less of the free imaginative play of its predecessor…but, in sharp brilliance of wit and criticism, in intellectual unity and coherence, it surpasses Erewhon"
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This is Butler's fourth book on his one-sided feud with Darwin wherein he again rejects Darwinism in favor of a neo-Lamarckian evolutionary view. While Butler was growing increasingly self-righteous and resentful over his belief that Darwin was deliberately hiding the truth about evolution, it was to be Butler's last book on the subject.
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Edited by Butler's friend and posthumous biographer, Henry Festing Jones, this volume is a compendium of Butler's thoughts, insights, and reflections, gathered over the course of his lifetime. In addition to his descriptions of incidents and conversations from his life, there are Butler's fascinating musings on such subjects as philosophy, music, art, literature, morality, biology, and natural history.
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Butler's first book, published in 1863, is a lively compilation of letters that he sent to his family while working as a sheep farmer in New Zealand for several years. Financed and edited into book form by Butler's father, it is a spirited account of Butler's experiences on the frontier. This volume also includes nineteen early essays on such varied topics as Darwin's "Origins of Species." "The Tempest," English cricketeers, the Italian priesthood,...
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A partir de una visión negativa de la teoría de la evolución de Darwin, Butler crea en "Erewhon" una fantasía filosófica sobre un país situado en un lugar remoto del mundo que representa una antítesis de la Inglaterra de su época. Prácticamente todos los usos y costumbres sociales de los erewhonianos son los opuestos, los contrarios exactos de la sociedad victoriana: la enfermedad, la salud, el delito, todo se concibe y trata de forma antagónica...
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In Erewhon, an anagram for "nowhere," sickness is a punishable crime, criminals receive compassionate medical treatment, and machines are banned, lest they evolve and take over. Originally published in 1872, the proto-steampunk novel Erewhon won its author immediate recognition as a satirist. SamuelButler followed in the tradition of Voltaire and Swift in creating Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited, which are widely recognized as the nineteenth century's...
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Published in 1917, this volume is based on a series of articles published by Butler in the 1870s and revised by him prior to his death. Here Butler sets forth his conception of the divine, as an evolutionary force that encompasses all living things and tends toward ever-greater unity and self-awareness.
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Purporting to be the work of "the late John Pickard Owen" (with a memoir by his brother), this 1873 satire set out to defend Christianity, but was written so subtly, that many readers, critics, and religious alike failed to recognize it as satire at all. While the first edition was written under a pseudonym, Butler revealed his authorship in the second edition, claiming he adopted a pseudonym for Fair Haven so as not to be suspected of satire.
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Introduces young readers to the fascinating and exciting world of Greek mythology. "The Iliad" tells of the long, long siege of Troy which ends when the Greeks win the war using a wooden horse. Odysseus is one of the Greek warriors and "The Odyssey" describes his amazing adventures on his voyage home from the Trojan War.