Author · United Kingdom · 1835–1902
Samuel Butler
Satire of custom and creed; thought experiments that still sting and amuse.
Samuel Butler was an English novelist and critic. He is best known for the satirical utopian novel Erewhon (1872) and the semi-autobiographical The Way of All Flesh. In other studies he examined Christian orthodoxy, evolutionary thought, and Italian art, and made prose translations of the Iliad and Odyssey that are still consulted today.
Genres
Literary fiction
Satire with a steady hand in 2026
Samuel Butler plays with society like a lab. Utopias flip assumptions, families test honesty, and institutions face the mirror. The wit is cool and productive. Read him to refresh debate about belief, habit, and reform, and to enjoy a style that argues without shouting.
