Samuel Butler, 1835–1902

Authors

  • Roger Robinson

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26686/knznq.v7i2.662

Abstract

In terms of the internationally recognised canon of literature in English, Samuel Butler’s Erewhon (1872) is the most important work to emerge from New Zealand. It has been continuously in print since 1872, is included in almost all series of literary classics, is widely taught in universities, and receives international scholarly attention. It is accepted as a major work of Victorian prose, a key indicator of changing values, and as standing with More’s Utopia and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels as the three outstanding examples of the genre of imagined world irony.

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Author Biography

Roger Robinson

References

Breuer, Hans-Peter. ‘Samuel Butler’s “The Book of the Machines” and the Argument from Design’. Modern Philology, 72 (1975): 365-383. https://doi.org/10.1086/390595 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/390595

Breuer, Hans-Peter. ‘The Source of Morality in Butler’s Erewhon’. Victorian Studies 16 (1973): 317-328.

Holt, Lee E. Samuel Butler. New York: Twayne, 1964.

Jeffers, Thomas. Samuel Butler Revalued. University Park: Penn State University Press, 1981.

Muggeridge, Malcolm. The Earnest Atheist: A Study of Samuel Butler. London: Eyre & Spottiswood, 1936.

Paradis, James (Ed.). Samuel Butler, Victorian Against the Grain. A Critical Overview. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442689053 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442689053

Parsell, Roger. Into the Wild with Samuel Butler, or, A man of three centuries. Townsville: Department of English, James Cook University of North Queensland, 1981.

Robinson, Roger. ‘Erewhon, or Over the Range’, Journal of New Zealand Literature 4 (1986): 83-85.

Robinson, Roger. ‘From Canterbury Settlement to “Erewhon”: Butler and Antipodean Counterpoint’. In Samuel Butler, Victorian Against the Grain. A Critical Overview. Ed. James G. Paradis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007, pp. 21-44. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442689053-005 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442689053-005

Robinson, Roger. ‘‘Halle-bloody-lujah’: Samuel Butler’s Complete Notebooks’. In Of Pavlova, Poetry and Paradigms: Essays in Honour of Harry Orsman. Eds. Laurie Bauer and Christine Franzen. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1993, pp. 78-90.

Robinson, Roger. ‘New Zealand Literature’. Oxford Companion to the English Language. Ed. Tom McArthur. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 698.

Robinson, Roger. ‘Samuel Butler’, ‘Erewhon’, ‘Erewhon Revisited’. Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Ed. Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 81-83, 166-167. https://doi.org/10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001

Robinson, Roger. ‘Samuel Butler 1835-1902’. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, 1. Wellington: Allen & Unwin, Department of Internal Affairs, 1990, pp. 62-63.

Robinson, Roger. ‘Samuel Butler: Exploration and Imagination’. In Provincial Perspectives. Essays in Honour of W.J. Gardner. Eds. Len Richardson and W. David McIntyre. Christchurch: University of Canterbury. 1980): 61-73; Samuel Butler Newsletter 3, 1980, pp. 33-50.

Shaffer, E.S. Erewhons of the Eye: Samuel Butler as Painter, Photographer and Art Critic. London: Reaktion, 1988.

Stillman, Clara G. Samuel Butler: A Mid-Victorian Modern. New York: Viking, 1932.

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Published

2008-06-07