This new biography of Samuel Butler aims to restore one of the 19th-century's most pungent and idiosyncratic writers to a central place in our literary heritage. Best known as the author of "Erewhon" and "The Way of All Flesh", Butler (1853-1902) was the son of a rigid disciplinarian, against whose rules he violently rebelled. Destined for the church, he refused ordination and in 1859 emigrated to New Zealand. Five years later he was back in London, devoting his time to satirical novels and provocative scholarship - on Darwin, Homer and Italian art - as well as to painting and photography. He recorded his activities in his "notebooks". Peter Raby is also the author of "Fair Ophelia: A Life of Harriet Smithson Berlioz" and "Oscar Wilde".
- ISBN10 0701208902
- ISBN13 9780701208905
- Publish Date 11 February 1991
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 April 2014
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Chatto & Windus
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 326
- Language English