Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh

Amy R. Wong (University of California, Los Angeles)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Jessica Gossling (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1903

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Samuel Butler’s

The Way of All Flesh

was written in the years between 1872 and 1884 but was not published until 1903, a year after Butler’s death, largely because the novel is Butler’s most autobiographical and contained a very critical representation of his upbringing by an authoritarian father of strict, high-church principles. Like the novel’s main character, Ernest Pontifex, Butler rebelled against his father, deciding not to take holy orders. While works published during his lifetime, most prominently his utopian novel

Erewhon, Or, Over the Range

(1872), won Butler moderate acclaim during his lifetime, it would be

The Way of All Flesh

that would establish Butler’s place in the literary canon, consolidating Butler’s reputation as a renegade Victorian with its scathing…

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2711 words

Citation: Wong, Amy R.. "The Way of All Flesh". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 September 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13298, accessed 27 November 2024.]

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Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh

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