Samuel Butler's most critically acclaimed novel,
Erewhon, or, Over the Range,
is set in the fictional country of Erewhon, an anagram of "nowhere." Butler crafts a mesmerizing narrative centered around a protagonist's journey through this seemingly utopian society. Initially, Erewhon appears idyllic-a place where money holds prestige but lacks purchasing power and nature is unspoiled by machines, which are banned due to their perceived threat to survival. Yet, the protagonist soon uncovers layers of religious insincerity and institutional flaws that shatter the illusion of perfection. In this topsy-turvy world, disease is a cause for imprisonment and crime is treated as an illness.
Erewhon
is frequently compared to Jonathan Swift's
Gulliver's Travels
in its satirical send-up of hypocritical society, but Butler goes further and does something altogether original in anticipating DNA testing and artificial intelligence-making
a groundbreaking work of speculative fiction. In addition to George Bernard Shaw, who is widely considered his chief disciple, Butler influenced and inspired other writers, including Aldous Huxley, E. M. Forster, Somerset Maugham, H. G. Wells, and Dorothy Richardson.This volume reproduces the expanded and definitive edition of
issued in 1901. It also contains the full text of Butler's article "Darwin among the Machines," which provided the basis for his eerily prescient chapters on machine learning and consciousness, as well as a detailed biographical timeline.