Register Guidelines E-Books Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book Uploads - Patricia Clark Memorial Library > ePub Books

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 09-05-2010, 12:22 PM   #1
weatherwax
Guru
weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.weatherwax ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
weatherwax's Avatar
 
Posts: 904
Karma: 5921577
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: South of Germany
Device: PRS650 (red), Kindle PW2, Galaxy Note 8
Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh V1. 05 Sep 2010

Samuel Butler (4 or 5 December 1835 – 18 June 1902) was an iconoclastic Victorian author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and the posthumous novel The Way of All Flesh. He is also known for examining Christian orthodoxy, substantive studies of evolutionary thought, studies of Italian art, and works of literary history and criticism. Butler also made prose translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey which remain in use to this day.
Butler belonged to no school, and spawned no followers during his lifetime. A serious but amateur student of the subjects he undertook, especially religious orthodoxy and evolutionary thought, his controversial assertions effectively shut him out from both of the opposing factions of Church and science which played such a large role in late Victorian cultural life: “In those days one was either a religionist or a Darwinian, but he was neither.” His influence on literature, such as it was, came through The Way of All Flesh, which Butler completed in the 1880s but left unpublished in order to protect his family. And yet the novel, “begun in 1870 and not touched after 1885, was so modern when it was published in 1903, that it may be said to have started a new school,” particularly in the use of psychoanalytical modes of thought in fiction, which "his treatment of Ernest Pontifex [the hero of Butler's novel] foreshadows."
Whether in his satire and fiction, his studies on the evidences of Christianity, his works on evolutionary thought or in his miscellaneous other writings, however, a consistent theme runs through Butler's work, stemming largely from his personal struggle with the stifling of his own nature by his parents, which led him on to seek more general principles of growth, development and purpose: "What concerned him was to establish his nature, his aspirations and their fulfillment upon a philosophic basis, to identify them with the nature, the aspirations, the fulfillment of all humanity – and more than that – with the fulfillment of the universe . . . His struggle became generalized, symbolic, tremendous." The form that this search took was principally philosophic and – given the interests of the day – biological: “Satirist, novelist, artist and critic that he was, he was primarily a philosopher,” and in particular a philosopher who sought the biological foundations for his work: “His biology was a bridge to a philosophy of life which sought a scientific basis for religion and endowed a naturalistically conceived universe with a soul.” Indeed, "philosophical writer" was ultimately the self-description Butler himself chose as most fitting to his work.
Source: Wikipedia

Preface of the book:
Samuel Butler began to write "The Way of All Flesh" about the year 1872, and was engaged upon it intermittently until 1884. It is therefore, to a great extent, contemporaneous with "Life and Habit," and may be taken as a practical illustration of the theory of heredity embodied in that book. He did not work at it after 1884, but for various reasons he postponed its publication. He was occupied in other ways, and he professed himself dissatisfied with it as a whole, and always intended to rewrite or at any rate to revise it. His death in 1902 prevented him from doing this, and on his death-bed he gave me clearly to understand that he wished it to be published in its present form. I found that the MS. of the fourth and fifth chapters had disappeared, but by consulting and comparing various notes and sketches, which remained among his papers, I have been able to supply the missing chapters in a form which I believe does not differ materially from that which he finally adopted. With regard to the chronology of the events recorded, the reader will do well to bear in mind that the main body of the novel is supposed to have been written in the year 1867, and the last chapter added as a postscript in 1882.
This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.
Attached Files
File Type: epub The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler.epub (506.5 KB, 746 views)

Last edited by weatherwax; 09-05-2010 at 02:14 PM. Reason: correcting subject
weatherwax is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Other Fiction Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh, v1. 25 Sept 2007 Anais9000 BBeB/LRF Books 20 09-07-2010 12:11 AM
Other Non-Fiction Butler, Samuel: Life and Habit V1. 05 Sep 2010 weatherwax ePub Books 0 09-05-2010 12:13 PM
Other Fiction Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh, v1.2, IMP, 20 Dec 2007. Patricia IMP Books 0 12-20-2007 07:11 PM
Other Fiction Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh, v1. 25 Sept 2007. Patricia BBeB/LRF Books 2 12-20-2007 06:56 PM
Other Fiction Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh, v1. 25 Sept 2007. Patricia Kindle Books 0 09-25-2007 04:28 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 02:05 AM.


MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.