Purporting to be the work of ‘the late John Pickard Owen’ (with a memoir by his brother), this 1873 satire set out to defend Christianity, but was written so subtly, that many readers, critics, and religious alike failed to recognize it as satire at all. While the first edition was written under a pseudonym, Butler revealed his authorship in the second edition, claiming he adopted a pseudonym for Fair Haven so as not to be suspected of satire.
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Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was an English novelist, essayist, and critic. He wrote on Christian orthodoxy, evolutionary thought, and Italian art. He is best known for Erewhon (1872) and The Way of All Flesh (1903), a semiautobiographical novel, which, with ferocious wit and palpable anger, skewers the pernicious effects of religious hypocrisy.