Half.com by eBay: Buy and Sell new and used books, music, movies, games and more...
My AccountWish ListSell My StuffHelpeBay HomeSign in
Home Books Textbooks Music Movies Games Game Systems
Search: Advanced Search
Home > Books Save big now on our top 200 bestselling books

Erewhon: Over the Range Easyread Super Large 24pt Edition
(Hardcover, 1981) Other Editions...

Author: Daniel Francis Howard, Hans-Peter Breuer, Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler claims to have spent 10 years writing his first novel, which emerged as a masterpiece ...
BEST PRICE
$20.67

LIST PRICE
$38.50
Save 46%
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0874131421
ISBN-13: 9780874131420
Nov 1981
Publisher: Univ of Delaware Pr
279 pages
Language: English
 Sell my copy
 Add to my wishlist
 Match my price
My Rating
 I own it
Items for Sale (1)
Details
Other Editions
Very Good About our quality ratings

Price Seller Feedback Comments Shipping From
$20.67 Buy! snowriderbooks
(Feedback is 100 to 499) 98%
Very Good academic library Hardcover copy no dust jacket; with all usual... Media Mail from ML* More info

Details


Synopsis
Samuel Butler claims to have spent 10 years writing his first novel, which emerged as a masterpiece of social and religious satire. The delay was partly due to the fact that it was composed on Sundays while the rest of Butler's weeks were devoted to what he felt at the time was his true calling: painting. Borrowing the landscape of New Zealand and adopting ideas from articles Butler had written for magazines in response to Darwin's evolutionary theories, Butler created the strange race of Erewhonians who have forbidden the use of machines, who treat their sick like criminals and their criminals like sick people, who suppress originality and hold that the greatest scholarly achievement is proficiency in the study of unreason and "hypothetics."

Size
Length:279 pages
Height:9.8 in
Width:6.5 in
Thickness:1.0 in
Weight:19.2 oz

Publisher's Notes
First Line: "If the reader will excuse me, I will say nothing of my antecedents, nor of the circumstances which led me to leave my native country; the narrative would be tedious to him and painful to myself. Suffice it, that when I left home it was with the intention of going to some new colony, and either finding, or even perhaps purchasing, waste crown land suitable for cattle or sheep farming, by which means I thought that I could better my fortunes more rapidly than in England."

Industry Reviews
"In 'Erewhon' Butler found both a subject and himself....Yet it remains in many ways the queerest satire that has ever been written....When Butler describes the Musical Banks or the attitudes of Erewhonians towards disease, it is impossible to detect the least flicker of emotion either towards us and our ways or the Erewhonians and their ways. This makes 'Erewhon' a very queer book, for what can be more strange and disquieting than a humorist who is apparently never amused."
"Essays on Literature, History, Politics, Etc." - Leonard Woolf (01/01/1927)

"Why did this book influence me? For one thing, I have the sort of mind which likes to be taken unawares. The frontal full-dress presentation of an opinion often repels me, but if it be insidiously slipped in sidewise I may receive it, and Butler is a master of the oblique....'Erewhon' also influenced me in its technique. I like the idea of fantasy, of muddling up the actual and the impossible until the reader isn't sure which is which, and I have sometimes tried to do it when writing myself."
Two Cheers for Democracy - E. M. Forster (01/01/1951)

"...Butler's wildest jokes are nearer to present-day truths than many sober Victorian platitudes. His straighteners are our psychoanalysts and psychiatrists: his method of treating moral offences is that of our more intelligent penologists....In 'Erewhon' there are meanings within meanings; and each fresh mutation of life throws some new characteristic of 'Erewhon' into relief....If 'Erewhon' is not the best of Butler's books, it remains for many reasons the most important. It is the war of a kindly, straightforward spirit with sham, bigotry, humbug, pretension, cant, affectation, stupidity. Once set out on that campaign, Butler never retreated....If he does not always seem to fight on the side of the angels, it is perhaps because the angels have a horrid way of getting into bad company."
Introduction - Lewis Mumford (08/19/1927)

"When I produce plays in which Butler's fresh and future-piercing suggestions have an obvious share, I am met with nothing but vague cacklings about Ibsen and Nietzsche."
Book Jacket - George Bernard Shaw


Did you find errors in this product information? Submit a catalog update request now.
Other Editions

Paperback, 1970 - $2.67 Save 80%
Paperback, 1998 - $0.93 Save 76%
Paperback, 1998 - $2.25 Save 83%
Paperback, 1970 - $0.75 Save 40%
Hardcover, 1959 - $5.70 Save 47%
Audio, 1997 - Not in stock. Add to Wish List
Paperback, 2002 - $0.75 Save 70%
Paperback, 2003 - Not in stock. Add to Wish List
Hardcover, 2003 - Not in stock. Add to Wish List
Paperback, 2006 - $26.00
Paperback, 2007 - $15.74 Save 7%
Paperback, 2007 - $9.75 Save 24%
Paperback, 2008 - $9.00 Save 35%
Paperback, 2007 - $14.53 Save 34%
Paperback, 2008 - $35.05 Save 51%
Hardcover, 2008 - $109.36
Hardcover, 2008 - $27.57
Paperback, 2008 - $15.65
Paperback, 2009 - Not in stock. Add to Wish List
Paperback, 2009 - Not in stock. Add to Wish List
Paperback, 2009 - $42.44
Paperback, 2009 - Not in stock. Add to Wish List
Paperback, 2009 - Not in stock. Add to Wish List
Paperback, 2009 - Not in stock. Add to Wish List
Paperback, 2009 - Not in stock. Add to Wish List
Paperback, 2009 - Not in stock. Add to Wish List

Similar Items on eBay