Cover of The way of all flesh
Read Time: ~6.6 hr

The way of all flesh

by Samuel Butler (1993)

About this book

I am the enfant terrible of literature and science. If I cannot, and I know I cannot, get the literary and scientific big-wigs to give me a shilling, I can, and I know I can, heave bricks into the middle of them.' With The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler threw a subversive brick at the smug face of Victorian domesticity. Published in 1903, a year after Butler's death, the novel is a thinly disguised account of his own childhood and youth 'in the bosom of a Christian family'. With irony, wit and sometimes rancour, he savaged contemporary values and beliefs, turning inside-out the conventional novel of a family's life through several generations.

Setting / LocationLondon & UK
Story Era1800s / Victorian
Protagonist / CoreThe way of all flesh Lead Character

Readers who enjoyed this also loved

Cover of The remarkable rise of Eliza Jumel

The remarkable rise of Eliza Jumel

Margaret A. Oppenheimer

"Born Betsy Bowen into grinding poverty, the woman who became Eliza Jumel was raised in a brothel, indentured as a servant, and confined to a workhouse when her mother was in jail. Yet by the end of her life, "Madame Jumel" was one of America's richest women, with servants of her own, a New York mansion and Saratoga Springs summer home, a major art collection, and several hundred acres of land. During her remarkable rise, she acquired a fortune from her first husband--a French merchant--and almost lost it to her second--notorious vice president Aaron Burr. Divorcing Burr amid lurid charges of adultery, Jumel lived on to the age of 90, astutely managing her property and public persona. After her death, a titanic battle over her estate went all the way to the United States Supreme Court--twice. Family members told of a woman who earned the gratitude of Napoleon I and shone at the courts of Louis XVIII and Charles X. Claimants to her estate painted a different picture: of a prostitute, the mother of George Washington's illegitimate son, a wife who defrauded her husband and perhaps even plotted his death. Eliza Jumel's real story--so unique that it surpasses any invention--has yet to be told, until now. "--

Cover of Like a diamond

Like a diamond

Malcolm Macdonald

A romance between master and servant in class-conscious Victorian England. He is Peter, the master's son, she is Gemma, the new maid. They love each other, but family and servants will do their best to keep them apart.

Cover of Little bones

Little bones

Janette Jenkins

"It's London, 1899. A young girl is abandoned by her feckless family and finds lodging and work assisting a doctor. Jane and the doctor hurry to appointments in boarding houses across town. The young actresses who live there have problems, and Mr. Swift does what is required, calmly and discreetly. When the pair become involved with a rakish music hall star, Johnny Treble, it seems that Jane's spell of good fortune is not going to last. The police come knocking - how will the doctor explain their connection to Johnny's sudden death? And how will Jane argue her innocence?"--Back cover.

Cover of Jack knife

Jack knife

Virginia Baker

For Inspector Jonas Robb, each night brings new terror. But this night is different. It's brought two strangers-David and Sara-who have arrived in London seemingly with no past. What they do have is incredible knowledge about the Whitechapel fiend known as Jack the Ripper. Because David and Sara do have a past. It just happens to be in the future.Sent back in time, they're in pursuit of a 21st-century madman whose purpose is to change history. As the body count rises, Sara and David realize that their quarry and Robb's have become linked in a way that threatens not only Victorian London, but the very fabric of time.

The way of all flesh by Samuel Butler | Literally Just Books