Samuel Butler 
The Way of All Flesh (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential 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 Pontifexs 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 fathers 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.