Samuel Butler

Born in 1835 in Nottinghamshire, he was raised in a clerical family and educated at Shrewsbury and St John's College, Cambridge. After a period in New Zealand as a sheep farmer, he returned to England and began writing the books and essays that made him one of the most original and argumentative literary voices of the Victorian period.

His best-known works include Erewhon, a witty satirical novel that turns familiar ideas upside down, and The Way of All Flesh, a powerful critique of family life and religious respectability that was published after his death in 1903. He also wrote on art, literature, and science, and became known for questioning Charles Darwin's ideas and for pushing readers to think for themselves.

Although he could be controversial in his own time, his writing has lasted because it is clever, funny, and unexpectedly modern in spirit. He died in 1902, leaving behind a body of work that still feels fresh whenever it takes aim at hypocrisy, certainty, and social convention.