Samuel Butler 
The Way of All Flesh (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.

The Way of All Flesh (1903) mercilessly exposed Victorian hypocrisies of religion and social life. The novel built up a large following for its unsparing and often bitterly comic depiction of generations of the deluded Pontifex family. Contemporary readers can appreciate the story of Ernest Pontifex’s fitful and troubled journey into intellectual and social independence, even as lip service to the same Victorian pieties has not yet disappeared.

About the author

Samuel Butler was born in 1835 near Nottingham, England. Shortly after he took his degree at Cambridge he decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a member of the clergy, and instead announced his intention to study art. He moved to New Zealand, became a successful sheep farmer, and began his writing career.