Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son. Samuel Butler
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Samuel Butler
Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664584670
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I: UPS AND DOWNS OF FORTUNE—MY FATHER STARTS FOR EREWHON
CHAPTER II: TO THE FOOT OF THE PASS INTO EREWHON
CHAPTER III: MY FATHER WHILE CAMPING IS ACCOSTED BY PROFESSORS HANKY AND PANKY
CHAPTER IV: MY FATHER OVERHEARS MORE OF HANKY AND PANKY’S CONVERSATION
CHAPTER V: MY FATHER MEETS A SON, OF WHOSE EXISTENCE HE WAS IGNORANT; AND STRIKES A BARGAIN WITH HIM
CHAPTER VI: FURTHER CONVERSATION BETWEEN FATHER AND SON—THE PROFESSORS’ HOARD
CHAPTER VII: SIGNS OF THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS CATCH MY FATHER’S EYE ON EVERY SIDE
CHAPTER IX: INTERVIEW BETWEEN YRAM AND HER SON
CHAPTER XI: PRESIDENT GURGOYLE’S PAMPHLET “ON THE PHYSICS OF VICARIOUS EXISTENCE”
CHAPTER XII: GEORGE FAILS TO FIND MY FATHER, WHEREON YRAM CAUTIONS THE PROFESSORS
CHAPTER XIII: A VISIT TO THE PROVINCIAL DEFORMATORY AT FAIRMEAD
CHAPTER XIV: MY FATHER MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR BALMY, AND WALKS WITH HIM NEXT DAY TO SUNCH’STON
CHAPTER XVII: GEORGE TAKES HIS FATHER TO PRISON, AND THERE OBTAINS SOME USEFUL INFORMATION
CHAPTER XXI: YRAM, ON GETTING RID OF HER GUESTS, GOES TO THE PRISON TO SEE MY FATHER
CHAPTER XXII: MAINLY OCCUPIED WITH A VERACIOUS EXTRACT FROM A SUNCH’STONIAN JOURNAL
CHAPTER XXV: GEORGE ESCORTS MY FATHER TO THE STATUES; THE TWO THEN PART
CHAPTER XXVI: MY FATHER REACHES HOME, AND DIES NOT LONG AFTERWARDS
CHAPTER XXVII: I MEET MY BROTHER GEORGE AT THE STATUES, ON THE TOP OF THE PASS INTO EREWHON
CHAPTER I: UPS AND DOWNS OF FORTUNE—MY FATHER STARTS FOR EREWHON
Before telling the story of my father’s second visit to the remarkable country which he discovered now some thirty years since, I should perhaps say a few words about his career between the publication of his book in 1872, and his death in the early summer of 1891. I shall thus touch briefly on the causes that occasioned his failure to maintain that hold on the public which he had apparently secured at first.
His book, as the reader may perhaps know, was published anonymously, and my poor father used to ascribe the acclamation with which it was received, to the fact that no one knew who it might not have been written by. Omne ignotum pro magnifico, and during its month of anonymity the book was a frequent topic of appreciative comment in good literary circles. Almost coincidently with the discovery that he was a mere nobody, people began to feel that their admiration had been too hastily bestowed, and before long opinion turned all the more seriously against him for this very reason. The subscription, to which the Lord Mayor had at first given his cordial support, was curtly announced as closed before it had been opened a week; it had met with so little success that I will not specify the amount eventually handed over, not without protest, to my father; small, however, as it was, he narrowly escaped being prosecuted for trying to obtain money under false pretences.
The Geographical Society, which had for a few days received him with open arms, was among the first to turn upon him—not, so far as I can ascertain, on account of the mystery in which he had enshrouded the exact whereabouts of Erewhon, nor yet by reason of its being persistently alleged that he was subject to frequent attacks of alcoholic poisoning—but through his own want of tact, and a highly-strung nervous state, which led him to attach too much importance to his own discoveries, and not enough to those of other people. This, at least, was my father’s version of the matter, as I heard it from his own lips in the later years of his life.
“I