{"product_id":"2026200012574-secondhand-the-essential-samuel-butler","title":"The Essential Samuel Butler","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Wear and tear with damage\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eMarkings: Previous owner,Fair - Bumping on spine and corners. Rubbed edges.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFew Victorian writers provoked, amused, and unsettled their contemporaries quite like Samuel Butler — novelist, essayist, philosopher, and chronic contrarian whose work refused easy categorisation. The Essential Samuel Butler presents a carefully curated selection of Butler's most significant writings, introduced and contextualised by the distinguished scholar G. D. H. Cole, offering readers a masterful gateway into one of the nineteenth century's most restlessly original minds. From the satirical utopian vision of Erewhon to the semi-autobiographical candour of The Way of All Flesh, this anthology chronicles the full breadth of Butler's intellectual range — his scepticism of Darwinian orthodoxy, his irreverent wit, and his penetrating social criticism — gathered here in a form accessible to both the devoted enthusiast and the curious newcomer.\n\nCole's authoritative introduction anchors Butler's work within its broader cultural and intellectual context, illuminating why this iconoclastic thinker remained fiercely ahead of his time long after his death in 1902. Published by the prestigious Jonathan Cape imprint from their Thirty Bedford Square, London offices, this edition stands as a testament to Butler's enduring literary significance — a writer George Bernard Shaw famously championed, and whose influence on modern fiction and thought has never truly diminished. For anyone who suspects that the sharpest critiques of society are best delivered with a raised eyebrow and a perfectly turned sentence, Butler's essential writings await.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49130945839323,"sku":"2026200012574-SECONDHAND","price":15.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/20a9ebca-5bab-4237-9d62-9c29628bd9d4.png?v=1786593134","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200012574-secondhand-the-essential-samuel-butler","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}