Erewhon (Dover Thrift Editions: SciFi/Fantasy) - Softcover

Samuel Butler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486420485 ISBN 13: 9780486420486

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2002

Synopsis

In a faraway land, a traveler encounters a peculiar, topsy-turvy society in which sickness is a punishable crime and crime is an illness for which criminals receive compassionate medical treatment. The English church is ridiculed as a "musical bank," which deals with a currency nobody believes in but which everyone pretends to value. University instructors teach courses on how to take a long time to say nothing, and machines are banned for fear they will evolve and be the masters of man.
First published in 1872, Erewhon (an anagram for "nowhere") is perhaps the most brilliant example of Utopian novels, taking aim at the humbug, hypocrisy, and absurdities surrounding such hallowed institutions as family, church, mechanical progress, advances in scientific theory, and legal systems.
Intelligent, inventive, and wickedly humorous, the classic novel protests the blind acceptance of ideas and attitudes, an aspect of Samuel Butler's work that made his fiction enduring, entertaining, and thought-provoking. His remarkable prescience in anticipating future sociological trends adds a special relevance for today's readers.

About this title

About the Author

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was the son of a clergyman. Following a disagreement with his father, he left England to beome a sheep farmer in New Zealand, returning to England in 1864. He published Erewhon anonymously in 1872, and went on to publish several works attacking contemporary scientific ideas, in particular Darwin's theory of natural selection.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0486420485
• ISBN 13: 9780486420486
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192