Erewhon Revisited

Erewhon Revisited

By Samuel Butler.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Epigraph
4. Author’s Preface
5. Erewhon Revisited
   1. I: Ups and Downs of Fortune—My Father Starts for Erewhon
   2. II: To the Foot of the Pass Into Erewhon
   3. III: My Father While Camping Is Accosted by Professors Hanky and Panky
   4. IV: My Father Overhears More of Hanky and Panky’s Conversation
   5. V: My Father Meets a Son, of Whose Existence He Was Ignorant; and Strikes a Bargain with Him
   6. VI: Further Conversation Between Father and Son—The Professors’ Hoard
   7. VII: Signs of the New Order of Things Catch My Father’s Eye on Every Side
   8. VIII: Yram, Now Mayoress, Gives a Dinner-Party, in the Course of Which She Is Disquieted by What She Learns from Professor Hanky: She Sends for Her Son George and Questions Him
   9. IX: Interview Between Yram and Her Son
   10. X: My Father, Fearing Recognition at Sunch’ston, Betakes Himself to the Neighbouring Town of Fairmead
   11. XI: President Gurgoyle’s Pamphlet “On the Physics of Vicarious Existence”
   12. XII: George Fails to Find My Father, Whereon Yram Cautions the Professors
   13. XIII: A Visit to the Provincial Deformatory at Fairmead
   14. XIV: My Father Makes the Acquaintance of Mr. Balmy, and Walks with Him Next Day to Sunch’ston
   15. XV: The Temple Is Dedicated to My Father, and Certain Extracts Are Read from His Supposed Sayings
   16. XVI: Professor Hanky Preaches a Sermon, in the Course of Which My Father Declares Himself to Be the Sunchild
   17. XVII: George Takes His Father to Prison, and There Obtains Some Useful Information
   18. XVIII: Yram Invites Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum to Luncheon—A Passage at Arms Between Her and Hanky Is Amicably Arranged
   19. XIX: A Council Is Held at the Mayor’s, in the Course of Which George Turns the Tables on the Professors
   20. XX: Mrs. Humdrum and Dr. Downie Propose a Compromise, Which, After an Amendment by George, Is Carried Nem. Con.
   21. XXI: Yram, on Getting Rid of Her Guests, Goes to the Prison to See My Father
   22. XXII: Mainly Occupied with a Veracious Extract from a Sunch’stonian Journal
   23. XXIII: My Father Is Escorted to the Mayor’s House, and Is Introduced to a Future Daughter-in-Law
   24. XXIV: After Dinner, Dr. Downie and the Professors Would Be Glad to Know What Is to Be Done About Sunchildism
   25. XXV: George Escorts My Father to the Statues; The Two Then Part
   26. XXVI: My Father Reaches Home, and Dies Not Long Afterwards
   27. XXVII: I Meet My Brother George at the Statues, on the Top of the Pass Into Erewhon
   28. XXVIII: George and I Spend a Few Hours Together at the Statues, and Then Part—I Reach Home—Postscript
6. Endnotes
7. List of Illustrations
8. Colophon
9. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Ἐχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς Ἀΐδαο πύλῃσιν
ὅς χ’ ἕτερον μὲν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ.

Him do I hate even as I hate Hell fire,
Who says one thing, and hides another in his heart.

Iliad, IX 312, 313

Author’s Preface

I forget when, but not very long after I had published Erewhon in 1872, it occurred to me to ask myself what course events in Erewhon would probably take after Mr. Higgs, as I suppose I may now call him, had made his escape in the balloon with Arowhena. Given a people in the conditions supposed to exist in Erewhon, and given the apparently miraculous ascent of a remarkable stranger into the heavens with an earthly bride⁠—what would be the effect on the people generally?

There was no use in trying to solve this problem before, say, twenty years should have given time for Erewhonian developments to assume something like permanent shape, and in 1892 I was too busy with books now published to be able to attend to Erewhon. It was not till the early winter of 1900, i.e. as nearly as may be thirty years after the date of Higgs’s escape, that I found time to deal with the question above stated, and to answer it, according to my lights, in the book which I now lay before the public.

I have concluded, I believe rightly, that the events described in Chapter XXIV of Erewhon would give rise to such a cataclysmic change in the old Erewhonian opinions as would result in the development of a new religion. Now the development of all new religions follows much the same general course. In all cases the times are more or less out of joint⁠—older faiths are losing their hold upon the masses. At such times, let a personality appear, strong in itself, and made to seem still