First published 1978
Samuel Butler stands at his writing desk in Victorian London, wrestling with ideas that challenge everything his contemporaries hold sacred. Harris traces Butler's journey from dutiful son of a clergyman to sharp-tongued critic of society's most cherished institutions. The author reveals how Butler's travels to New Zealand shaped his satirical vision, leading him to create the backwards utopia of Erewhon where crime becomes illness and machines threaten to evolve beyond their creators. Harris shows Butler caught between his family's expectations and his own rebellious intellect, using fiction to attack religious orthodoxy and social conventions he found suffocating. The book explores how Butler's personal struggles with faith and authority fueled his literary imagination, transforming private doubts into public satire. Harris captures Butler's wit and iconoclasm while revealing the man behind the provocative prose.
Genres: biography, fiction, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 19th-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-expectations, personal-struggles, rebellion
Setting: London, New Zealand
Period: Victorian
304 pages · Unknown Binding · R. West