Lives & letters

MARRIAGE In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved. AN APOLOGY FOR THE DEVIL It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books. One of our most original writers and thinkers, Samuel Butler always carried a small black notebook in his waistcoat pocket in which he jotted down such eternal epigrams, questions, anecdotes, oddities, fables — incisive asides on everything from God to Grapes, Wisdom to Window Cleaning. Writers as different as Virginia Woolf and George Bernard Shaw were among those influenced by Butler's 'fresh and future-piercing suggestions' and the Notebooks have long been regarded as containing his most hilarious and pungent writing. But, despite the temptation, be warned against reading them in a dentist's waiting room, a hushed library, or anywhere else where the sudden guffaw raises a steely glare. Samuel Butler (1835 — 1902), painter; composer, writer, sometime New Zealand sheep farmer, notable eccentric, is best known for his satirical Erewhon and the blistering autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh. The Notebooks, edited by his good friend, H. Festing Jones, were an instant success when first published in 1912. As pertinent and entertaining as ever, they are now reissued to celebrate Butler's 150th anniversary.

autobiography