author
Samuel Butler
1835–1902
Best known for the sly, unsettling satire Erewhon, this Victorian writer had a gift for questioning whatever his age took for granted. His work mixes wit, doubt, and sharp observation in ways that still feel fresh.
19 Audiobooks
Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son
by Samuel Butler
Selections from Previous Works With Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals, and a Psalm of Montreal
by Samuel Butler
Ex Voto: An Account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia With Some Notice of Tabachetti's Remaining Work at the Sanctuary of Crea
by Samuel Butler
Cambridge Pieces
by Samuel Butler
Erewhon; Or, Over the Range
by Samuel Butler
Life and Habit
by Samuel Butler
Essays on Life, Art and Science
by Samuel Butler
The Fair Haven
by Samuel Butler
Evolution, Old & New Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, as compared with that of Charles Darwin
by Samuel Butler
Luck, or Cunning, as the Main Means of Organic Modification
by Samuel Butler
The Humour of Homer and Other Essays
by Samuel Butler
Unconscious Memory
by Samuel Butler
God the Known and God the Unknown
by Samuel Butler
Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino
by Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler
by Samuel Butler
Canterbury Pieces
by Samuel Butler
The Way of All Flesh
by Samuel Butler
The Authoress of the Odyssey Where and when she wrote, who she was, the use she made of the Iliad, and how the poem grew under her hands
by Samuel Butler
A First Year in Canterbury Settlement
by Samuel Butler
About the author
Born on December 4, 1835, at Langar Rectory in Nottinghamshire, Samuel Butler grew up in a strict clerical family and was educated at Shrewsbury and St John's College, Cambridge. Although he was expected to follow the church, he turned away from that path and eventually made a life as an independent writer and thinker.
He is best remembered for Erewhon (1872), a satirical novel that playfully reverses the assumptions of Victorian society, and for The Way of All Flesh, his powerful semi-autobiographical novel about family pressure, religion, and personal freedom, published after his death in 1903. He also wrote essays and criticism, and became known for challenging accepted ideas, including popular views about religion and evolution.
Butler died in London on June 18, 1902. What keeps his work alive is the combination of humor and rebellion: he could be funny, skeptical, and deeply serious all at once, making him one of the most distinctive English voices of the late nineteenth century.