Samuel Butler 
The Way of All Flesh 

The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler – The Way of All Flesh (sometimes called Ernest Pontifex, or the Way of All Flesh) is a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler that attacks Victorian-era hypocrisy.[1] Written between 1873 and 1884, it traces four generations of the Pontifex family. Butler dared not publish it during his lifetime, but when it was published (in 1903) it was accepted as part of the general reaction against Victorianism.In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Way of All Flesh twelfth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.’

About the author

Samuel Butler was an iconoclastic Victorian author who published a variety of works, including the Utopian satire Erewhon and the posthumous novel The Way of All Flesh, his two best-known works, but also extending to examinations of Christian orthodoxy, substantive studies of evolutionary thought, studies of Italian art, and works of literary history and criticism. Butler also made prose translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey which remain in use to this day.See also: Samuel H. Butcher, Anglo-Irish classicist, who also undertook prose translations of Homer’s works (in collaboration with Andrew Lang