There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this book and while I mostly enjoyed the writing, the long tracts on the Erewhonians banking system, and their anti machine and other religious beliefs just goes on and on in quite a tedious way. I also didn’t like the narrator, he’s so sure that his own beliefs are correct, the vision of beauty is ridiculously Eurocentric etc etc, there’s plenty for a modern reader to pick apart. But it is influential, Herbert named the Butlerian jihad after the author for example. I did find the end just so amazing, the narrator plans to [return to Erewhon, take all the people to work on the cane fields in Queensland and turn them into good Christians !! Crazy. So this book is not a great read for me but it is important in the scheme of utopian/dystopian writing.

It has been a long time (decades, in fact) since I’ve read Samuel Butler. In the meantime, I’ve become much more familiar with the utopian texts of early English literature. In Erewhon, Butler gives us an exceptional example of the genre.

It has many similarities, but a better prose flow than Utopia, Gulliver’s travels, or Robinson Crusoe. Perhaps with this 150th anniversary release, Butler’s utopia will take its rightful place alongside the others in classrooms and in personal libraries.

Thank you to the Samuel Butler scholars, Erewhon Books, and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Jonathon Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels in 1726, nearly 300 years ago. Gulliver's fanciful voyage to the imaginary lands of Lilliput and beyond (to Brobdingnag, Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, Japan, and the Houyhnhnms) was full of satire and political criticism. Samuel Butler's Erewhon seemed, a bit redundant to me. If I'd enjoyed Gulliver's Travels more, then maybe I'd also have appreciated Erewhon, but since I'm not a big fan of GT I realized as soon as I started reading Erewhon that I really shouldn't have. The satirical journey taken in 1870 by a blond blue-eyed 22-yr old cadet named Higgs to Erewhon, is filled with beautiful people who he believes to be a lost tribe of Israel. These statuesque people he finds in Erewhon have a markedly different set of ethos they live by, for example "illness of any sort was considered to be highly criminal" but actual criminal behavior was excused as if it were a social blunder. Radical vegetarians, Aryanism, and an utter disregard for technology, are just a few of the inanities Higgs encounters and details in his Erewhonian journal.

A new edition of Samuel Butler’s classic Erewhon has been released to commemorate this 1872 classic’s 150th anniversary. Drawing on his background as a British clergyman’s son expected to follow in his father’s footsteps, upon his escape to a New Zealand sheep ranch, and upon his reading and study of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), Butler tells the story of a sheep farmer’s desire to learn what lies on the other side of the mountains bordering the sheep range. What he discovers is the upside-down country of Erewhon, an acronym for Nowhere, a strange new world more dystopian than utopian. Hospitals humanely care for and heal criminals while prisons lock up the sick. Society lauds a man who cheats an elderly woman out of her money and despises her for being deceived. Rather than working to develop new machines, the country bans them out of fear that they will become too sentient and powerful.

Although Erewhon has been around for 150 years and is still sometimes taught in literature classes, many modern-day readers remain unfamiliar with Butler’s work. Perhaps this new edition will increase his readership.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Erewhon Books, for an advance reader copy.

Not particularly interesting unfortunately. It's not a story-based novel, it's more of a representation of an idea with a helluva lot of description to illustrate that idea for the reader. Very dry, with not a lot for the modern reader to latch onto. Not really sure what would appeal to anyone about this but I found it a decent sleep aid to calm things down before sleepy times.

Erewhon - a delightful novel written in 18's by famous author samuel buttler..

The author did a great job of explaining this utopia to the readers.. Based in victorian era

"The weather was delightfully warm, considering that the valley in which we were encamped must have been at least two thousand feet above the level of the sea."

The wondrous wold building and the interactions between the characters give its own uniqueness to the novel.. I would recommend it for every one to read

Well this was always going to be a left-field pick for me, not being that keen on many of the classics, but its contents were definitely a surprise. I can hardly convey what I might have expected, for there was so little in my mind about the piece, and even having read the various editions' forewords en route to the main novel (not the specially new preface for this edition, as it wasn't ready in time), I had a much firmer impression that was still proven awry.

What I found was an inherently readable reportage of a man that has emigrated and become a worker on a sheep farm, but has wondered what the valleys beyond the second mountain range distant might look like – could he gain a monopoly there and thrive? Is there gold in them thar hills, or at least a greener grass? Well, he's getting along fine until he hits on the right path, upon which his local assistant and companion gubbers off home, but he finds his way down and across the relevant river and up the relevant mountains – and then finds, eventually, that he is in Erewhon. This is a place of beauteous people, and language barriers regardless there seems little trouble for a young missionary such as our narrator, but when the locals show a rampant anathema to something he took with him, doubts might register.

OK, a lot changes for the worse when the style changes into one of those "hey, aren't I great – I invented a world that's different from ours!" books, but this is still pretty readable and a lot more engaging than many such that followed this to our shelves. Whether that's down to the extremes of the switches – this is a world where physical health and unluckily catching a virus can lead to dreadful punishment, but mental health and point blank robbery are looked at as treatable concerns – is a matter of much better debate than I can offer.

It certainly gets a little woolly at times, and it definitely remains an ideas book as opposed to a plot-driven one (especially when he's insistent on telling us that he gets to come back long before we see how), but there remain good ideas, peppered with the plot. The monk-like cashiers at a certain bank, vegetarians – all get the scorn they deserve. You can come here for the remnants – actually stronger than you might still think – of the adventure/travel book, you can come for prescient thoughts on machine growth and AI, or Victorian scorn at religion. But I'd quite happily say you should come here – this is one of those readable classics that do defy what small preconceptions you might have.

I really appreciated being able to read this book for the first time! Its catchy cover and intriguing premise all drew me in, and the story itself kept me reading.

Erewhon by Samuel Butler

Even though this is the 150 year anniversary addition, I had never heard of it before.

I love the use of English in classics and this definitely has that. It is a story in which the narrator finds a unknown civilization with strange ideals and beliefs (in which the author uses to satirize the Victorian society of his day.) There is adventure, a smidge of romance, and some eye rolling.

This was definitely a case of picking a book by its cover but I still enjoyed it for what it had to offer.

Content warning: This is an old novel in which they use outdated terminology of tribal peoples, race, and pretty much anyone that doesn’t fit the mold of English Gentleman.