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SAMUEL BUTLER (1835-1902)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 888 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SAMUEL See also:BUTLER (1835-1902)  , See also:English author, son of the Rev . See also:Thomas See also:Butler, and See also:grandson of the foregoing, was See also:born at Langar, near See also:Bingham, See also:Nottinghamshire, on the 4th of See also:December 1835 . He was educated at See also:Shrewsbury school, and at St See also:John's See also:College, See also:Cambridge . He took a high See also:place in the classical tripos of 1858, and was intended for the See also:Church . His opinions, however, prevented his carrying out this intention, and he sailed to New See also:Zealand in the autumn of 1859 . He owned a See also:sheep run in the Upper Rangitata See also:district of the See also:province of See also:Canterbury, and in less than five years was able to return See also:home with a moderate competence, most of which was afterwards lost in unlucky investments . The Rangitata district supplied the setting for his See also:romance of Erewhon, or Over the Range (1872), satirizing the Darwinian theory and conventional See also:religion . Erewhon had a sequel See also:thirty years later (1901) in Erewhon Revisited, in which the narrator of the earlier romance, who had escaped from Erewhon in a See also:balloon, finds himself, on revisiting the See also:country after a considerable See also:interval, the See also:object of a topsy-turvy cult, to which he gave the name of " Sunchildism." In 1873 he had published a See also:book of similar tendency, The See also:Fair Haven, which purported to be a "See also:work in See also:defence of the miraculous See also:element in our See also:Lord's See also:ministry upon See also:earth " by a fictitious J . P . See also:Owen, of whom he'wrote a memoir . Butler was a See also:man of See also:great versatility, who pursued his investigations in classical scholarship, in Shakespearian See also:criticism, See also:biology and See also:art with equal See also:independence and originality . On his return from New Zealand he had established himself at See also:Clifford's See also:Inn, and studied See also:painting, exhibiting regularly in the See also:Academy between 1868 and 1876 .

But with the publication of See also:

Life and See also:Habit (1877) he began to recognize literature as his life work . The book was followed by three others, attacking Darwinism—See also:Evolution Old and New, or the Theories of BuJon, Dr See also:Erasmus See also:Darwin and See also:Lamarck as compared with that of Mr C . Darwin (1879); Unconscious Memory (188o), a comparison between the theory of Dr E . Hering and the See also:Philosophy of the Unconscious of Dr E. von See also:Hartmann; and See also:Luck or Cunning (1886) . He had a thorough knowledge of See also:northern See also:Italy and its art . In Ex Voto (1888) he introduced many English readers to the art of Tabachetti and Gaudenzio See also:Ferrari at Varallo . He learnt nearly the whole of the Iliad and the Odyssey by See also:heart, and translated both poems (1898 and 1900) into colloquial English See also:prose . In his Authoress of the Odyssey (1897) he propounded two theories: that the poem was the work of a woman, who See also:drew her own portrait in See also:Nausicaa; and that it was written at See also:Trapani, in See also:Sicily, a proposition which he supported by elaborate investigations on the spot . In another book on the See also:Shakespeare Sonnets (1899) he aimed at destroying the explanations of the orthodox commentators . Butler was also a musician, or, as he called himself, a Handelian, and in See also:imitation of the See also:style of See also:Handel he wrote in collaboration with H . Festing See also:Jones a See also:secular See also:oratorio, See also:Narcissus (1888), and had completed his See also:share of another, Ulysses, at the See also:time of his See also:death on the 18th of See also:June 1902 . His other See also:works include: Life and Letters (1896) of Dr See also:Samuel Butler, his grandfather, headmaster of Shrewsbury school and afterwards See also:bishop of See also:Lichfield; See also:Alps and Sanctuaries (1881); and two See also:posthumous works edited by R .

A . Streatfeild, The Way of All Flesh (1903), a novel; and Essays on Life, Art and See also:

Science (1904) . See Samuel Butler, Records and Memorials (1903), by R . A . Streatfeild, a collection printed for private circulation, the most important See also:article included being one by H . Festing Jones originally published in The See also:Eagle (Cambridge, December 1902) .

End of Article: SAMUEL BUTLER (1835-1902)
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