Erewhon Revisited

Samuel Butler (1835 ù 1902) was a Victorian novelist who wrote in many genres. The Way of All Flesh and Erehhon are his most famous novels. Besides fiction Butler also wrote on evolution, Christian orthodoxy, Italian art, literary history and translated the Iliad and The Odyssey. Erewhon is a utopian satire of Victorian England published in 1872. The title is the name of a fictional country and it is also the word nowhere spelled backwards. The beginning of the book deals with the discovery of Erewhon, which is based on Butler?s time in New Zealand where he worked on a sheep ranch for four years. The novel satirizes religion, anthropocentrism, and criminal punishment. Erewhon Revisited is the story of his return twenty years later to Erewhon to see how his departure in a balloon has effected the culture of the island.