Samuel Butler - Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited

Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited

SAMUEL BUTLER

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Mineola, New York

DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

GENERAL EDITOR: MARY CAROLYN WALDREP

EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: JANET B. KOPITO

Copyright

Copyright 2015 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2015, is an unabridged republication of the following works: the 1901 revised and expanded edition of Erewhon (published by Grant Richards), originally published by Trbner & Company, London, in 1872, and Erewhon Revisited, originally published as Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son by Grant Richards, London, in 1901. A Note has been specially written for the Dover edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Butler, Samuel, 18351902.

[Novels. Selections]

Erewhon : and Erewhon revisited / Samuel Butler.

p. cm. (Dover thrift editions)

eISBN-13: 978-0-486-80512-2

1. UtopiasFiction. I. Butler, Samuel, 18351902. Erewhon revisited. II. Title. III. Title: Erewhon revisited.

PR4349.B7A6 2015

823'.8dc23

2014044387

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

79637X01 2015

www.doverpublications.com

Note

SAMUEL BUTLER was born in Nottinghamshire, England, on December 4, 1835. The son of the Rev. Thomas Butler, Samuel was expected to become an Anglican priest, but due to his growing doubts about the Church, as well as his desire to become an artist, he decided to follow his own path. After graduating from Cambridge University in 1858, he traveled to New Zealand and became a sheep farmera vocation at which he was successful (his experiences in New Zealand provided a rich source of material for Erewhon, which begins with a discourse on sheep and shearing). During his sojourn abroad, Butler wrote Darwin Among the Machines (1863). After selling his farm at a profit, he returned to England in 1864 and thereafter followed his artistic ambitions: painting (he exhibited at the Royal Academy in London), composing music, and writing on various subjects. He wrote four books on evolution during the period 1877 to 1886, examining Darwins theories; he was friendly with Darwin but contributed his own critical appraisal. Another interest of Butlers was Italy and its arthe visited the country frequently and was inspired to write about it in two works of the 1880s. He lived comfortably, having been left property and inheritances, and he devoted himself to a variety of literary endeavors, translating the Iliad (1898) and the Odyssey (1900); writing a study of Shakespeares sonnets (1899); and producing The Way of All Flesh (published posthumously in 1903), his satire of the English middle class during the Victorian era. Butler died in a nursing home in London on June 18, 1902.

Erewhon (1872) and Erewhon Revisited (1901), presented as companions in this new edition, are essentially satirical examinationsrich in irony and pointed comparisons to Victorian societyof a quasi-Utopian nation, Erewhon (an anagram for nowhere). The narra tor describes in minute detail the conventions of Erewhonian society, encompassing crime and punishment, religion, educationeven the rights of animals and vegetables. One conventionpunishing those who fall ill while absolving those who commit crimespermits lawbreakers to declare that they are suffering from a severe fit of immorality. There transgressors are visited by friends offering great solicitude. Further, men known as straighteners are called in to practice soul-craftrehabilitation of the criminals. The ill, and diseased, in contrast, are punished. The banning of machines (and wristwatches) in Erewhon leads to the narrators decision regarding his residence in that land. Modern readers will recognize elements of science fiction, as well as intimations of steampunk culture, in both works.

Samuel Butler, in his Preface and Preface to the Second Edition, describes the publication history of Erewhon. In Erewhon Revisited, Butler uses the voice of the narrators son, John Higgs, to continue the story. Full of plot twists and introducing the villains Professors Hanky and Panky, the sequel focuses more narrowly on aspects of religion as practiced in Erewhon. This new approachprovocative to Victorian sensibilitiescaused Butlers publishers to reject the book. George Bernard Shaw came to the rescue, recommending that Butler approach Shaws publisher, Grant Richards. Erewhon Revisited appeared in 1901.

Contents

Erewhon

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

THE AUTHOR WISHES it to be understood that Erewhon is pronounced as a word of three syllables, all shortthus, -r-whn.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

HAVING BEEN ENABLED by the kindness of the public to get through an unusually large edition of Erewhon in a very short time, I have taken the opportunity of a second edition to make some necessary corrections, and to add a few passages where it struck me that they would be appropriately introduced; the passages are few, and it is my fixed intention never to touch the work again.

I may perhaps be allowed to say a word or two here in reference to The Coming Race, to the success of which book Erewhon has been very generally set down as due. This is a mistake, though a perfectly natural one. The fact is that Erewhon was finished, with the exception of the last twenty pages and a sentence or two inserted from time to time here and there throughout the book, before the first advertisement of The Coming Race appeared. A friend having called my attention to one of the first of these advertisements, and suggesting that it probably referred to a work of similar character to my own, I took Erewhon to a well-known firm of publishers on the 1st of May 1871, and left it in their hands for consideration. I then went abroad, and on learning that the publishers alluded to declined the MS., I let it alone for six or seven months, and, being in an out-of-the-way part of Italy, never saw a single review of The Coming Race, nor a copy of the work. On my return, I purposely avoided looking into it until I had sent back my last revises to the printer. Then I had much pleasure in reading it, but was indeed surprised at the many little points of similarity between the two books, in spite of their entire independence of one another.

I regret that reviewers have in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr. Darwins theory to an absurdity. Nothing could be further from my intention, and few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr. Darwin; but I must own that I have myself to thank for the misconception, for I felt sure that my intention would be missed, but preferred not to weaken the chapters by explanation, and knew very well that Mr. Darwins theory would take no harm. The only question in my mind was how far