"Erewhon," Samuel Butler

I attempted to get through Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh for class, and failed miserably; however, I remembered that Butler had written Erewhon, which was prominently featured in the Dictionary of Imaginary Places (a wonderful book and everyone should own a copy), and decided to read that instead. Our hero (a sheep herder, as Butler was once) decides to go exploring in the wilds of colony ----, and finds himself in the mysterious land of Erewhon, where illness is punished by death, and babies are really spirits who have emerged from a nebulous pre-existence. The centerpiece, I suppose, are the chapters on the evolution of machines which were written as a sort-of response to Darwin. I have very little understanding of the 19th century debates on evolution so I am no informed judge; I have to say that were I alive then, I would be swayed to Butler's side, merely because his style is so compelling.

My edition was printed in 1911 and has a list of ads at the back for other books the 1911 reader might want to purchase, including Racial Decay: A Compilation of Evidence from World Sources, in which "The literature of Neo-Mathusianism and the sale of abortifacient drugs and preventive appliances are severely handled by [the author]," The Nursery of Toryism: Reminiscences of Eton under Hornby ("a picture of idleness, lack of organization, and waste of any intellectual energy that showed itself"), and my personal favorite, A Holiday With A Hegelian.

The quick and dirty biography of Samuel Butler.