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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2021
Samuel Butler, the author of The Way of All Flesh, consoled himself during his life for his poor success as a writer with the thought that some day he would come into his own. In order to make certain that his books might be read, he annotated and explained his leading ideas carefully and cleared the way for his future readers. The course of events has shown that he was quite right in expecting his work to interest later generations. He has actually received almost as much attention from critics, students of literature, and readers as the most famous of his contemporaries. At the present time his position among the important writers of Victorian England is assured. What caused this growth of his reputation? Starting at the time of Butler's death, this article will summarize the critical comment on his work up to the point of his greatest popularity in order to supply the material necessary to an explanation of his rise to fame.
1 The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, p. 6. All references to Butler's works in this paper are to the Shrewsbury Edition (London: Jonathan Cape, 1923-25).
2 Ibid., pp. 370 ff.
3 (London, 1902), pp. 308-311.
4 Natural Science, xi, nos. 68, 69 (October, November 1897), 233-239, 305-316.
5 The Way of All Flesh was published in 1903 and The Note-Books of Samuel Butler appeared in various numbers of the New Quarterly Review from 1907 until 1910. It appeared in book form in 1912.
6 (June 20, 1902), 5, Col. 6.
7 (June 27, 1902), 10, Col. 1.
8 (June 28, 1902), 819-820.
9 See Henry Festing Jones, Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (London: Macmillan, 1920), i, xxv.
10 For this see Life and Habit and The Note-Books of Samuel Butler.
11 viii, no. 24 (1902), 137-147.
12 (May 30, 1903), 683.
13 (June 26, 1919), 347.
14 Samuel Butler der Jüngere (Leipzig, 1913), p. 174.
15 The Journals of Arnold Bennett (London, 1933), I, 192-193.
16 Idem., ii, 76.
17 This is the view taken by Malcolm Muggeridge, Study of Samuel Butler, the Earnest Atheist (London, 1936).
18 Samuel Butler: Records and Memorials (Cambridge, 1903).
19 (December 1902).
20 (London, 1904).
21 The Athenaeum (July 9, 1904), 46-47.
22 “The Author of Erewhon,” iii (September 1904), 527-538.
23 For Shaw's own statement about this see “Mr. Gilbert Cannan on Samuel Butler,” The New Statesman, v (May 8, 1915), 109-110.
24 “First Aid to Critics,” John Bull's Other Island and Major Barbara (New York, 1926), p. 172.
25 These facts about the Erewhon dinners are taken from Henry Festing Jones, op. cit., ii, 418-429.
26 A. C. Fifield, “Samuel Butler and Clutton-Brock,” The Times Literary Supplement (January 17, 1924).
27 “Samuel Butler,” The Times Literary Supplement, Seventh Year, no. 352 (October 9, 1908).
28 Felix Le Dantec, “Lemarck et Darwin, les Deux Tendances Biologiques,” Revue Scientific (February 6, 1909).
29 (Leipzig, 1909), ii, 449-452.
30 “Heredity and Variation in Modern Lights,” Darwin and Modern Science (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 86-100.
31 Ibid., p. 88.
32 Ibid., p. 100.
33 “The Biological Writings of Samuel Butler and their Relation to Contemporary and Subsequent Biological Thought,” Scientific Progress in the Twentieth Century, v (1910), 15-37.
34 “Samuel Butler and Recent Mnemic Biological Theories,” Scientia, xv, no. 33 (1914), 38-52.
35 Ibid., p. 38.
36 London, 1916.
37 Ibid., p. 341.
38 Ibid., p. 335.
39 Richard Semon, Mnemic Psychology, with an Introduction by Vernon Lee (New York, 1923), p. 12.
40 A. D. Darbishire, Review of Life and Habit, The English Review, vii (March 1911), 748-749.
41 Floris Delattre, “Samuel Butler et la Bergsonisme,” Revue Anglo-Américain, xiii (1936), pp. 385-405.
42 New York, 1917.
43 The Universe and Life (New Haven, 1933), pp. 1-17.
44 New York, 1935.
45 “The Philosophy of Samuel Butler,” Mind, N. S. xxiii (1914), 371-385.
46 “Samuel Butler of Erewhon,” Dublin Review, clv (1914), 322-344.
47 Ibid., 344.
48 Gerold Pestalozzi, Samuel Butler der Jüngere, Versuch einer Darstellung seiner Gedankenwelt (Zürich, 1914). My discussion is based on the summary in Meissner, op. cit., p. 180.
49 “Samuel Butler,” Mercure de France, lxxxvi (1910), 267-281.
50 London, 1911.
51 London, 1917.
52 No. 569 (December 5, 1912).
53 (November 23, 1912), p. 617.
54 liv (March 1913), pp. 222-223.
55 (January 1913), 192-196.
56 xliii (March 1913), 326-327.
57 xxiii (July 1913), 497-499.
58 See, for instance, The Dial, lv (October 16, 1913), 293-295 and The Contemporary Review, ciii (June 1913), 892-894.
59 For a list of the novelists especially affected see Ernest A. Baker, The History of the English Novel, X, Yesterday (London, 1939), p. 247.
60 A. E. Zucker, “The Genealogical Novel, a New Genre,” PMLA, xliii (1928), 551-560.
61 The Essay (London, 1915), pp. 17-18.
62 Modern English Writers (London, 1918), p. 321. In the “Preface to the First Edition” Williams says that the book was written before the war.
63 Samuel Butler, a Critical Study (London, 1915).
64 Samuel Butler (London, 1916).
65 See note 23 above.
66 Shelburne Essays, Eleventh Series (Boston, 1921), pp. 167-199.
67 (Cambridge, 1916), xiii, 499-505.
68 Ibid., 505.
69 “The Literary and Scientific Work of Samuel Butler,” North American, cciv (August 1916), 270-281.
70 “Samuel Butler, the Master Satirist,” As I was Saying (Boston, 1923), 52-85.
71 Felix Grendon, “Samuel Butler's God,” ccviii (August 1918), 277-286.
72 “Samuel Butler,” University of Pennsylvania Lectures 1918-1919 (Philadelphia, 1919), vi, 133-154.
