Highlights of the Samuel Butler Collection

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) was a writer, artist and photographer, who engaged in many of the topical debates of his time. He published books on subjects as diverse as evolution, religion, art, travel, classical literature and sheep-farming, but is best-known for his novels, Erewhon (1872) and The Way of All Flesh (1903). Butler read Classics at St John’s, graduating with First Class Honours in 1859. This wonderfully enigmatic photograph, taken about 1855, shows Butler (centre) posing with some of his undergraduate friends

In 1917, Butler’s friend and biographer Henry Festing Jones began donating his substantial collection of Butler’s books, manuscripts, photographs and possessions to the College. Almost a century on, thanks to a generous grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the Samuel Butler Project (2011-13), the collection has been fully catalogued and a number of key items have undergone professional conservation treatment.

This exhibition introduces some of the highlights of the Samuel Butler Collection.

‘In Memoriam’

Butler drafted this poem after bidding farewell to his friend Hans Faesch, who left England in ill health, bound for Singapore on a stormy night in February 1895. The poem’s title was somewhat pessimistic – Faesch survived the journey, settled in the East and went on to outlive Butler – but the sentiment was genuine. Butler referred to the poem as ‘the best thing I ever wrote’, but he did not publish it, realising his effusive expression of affection for his male friend might be misconstrued by the public.

Erewhon, or Over the Range (1872)

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, by Charles Darwin

This first edition of Charles Darwin’s most important work comes from Butler’s own library. In September 1859, two months before the book’s publication, Butler set sail for New Zealand where he worked profitably as a sheep farmer for four years. Freed from his family’s overbearing religious influence, and with plenty of time for reading and reflection, he studied the Origin of Species and was immediately convinced of the truth of evolution. Once back in England Butler wrote to Darwin expressing his fascination with the many questions the Origin raised.

Butler went on to pen four of his own works on the subject, later claiming that ‘however we may differ from [Darwin] in detail, the present general acceptance of evolution must remain as his work, and a more valuable work can hardly be imagined’.

According to Darwin’s publisher John Murray, all 1250 copies of the first edition Origin of Species were sold on the day of publication (24th November 1859). In fact, quite a few had already been distributed either for review or as ‘presentation copies’. This volume is one of 23 known presentation copies, all of which are identified by this inscription on the flyleaf:

The inscription is not in Darwin’s hand but the hand of one of Murray’s clerks at the publishing house. Samuel Butler acquired the volume second-hand sometime in the 1870s, having lost the copy he originally read in New Zealand.

Philosophie Zoologique, by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1809)

Originally published in 1809, Lamarck’s Philosophie Zoologique contains the earliest account of a cohesive theory of the evolutionary process, putting forward the idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics (that offspring inherit characteristics which their parents acquired through habitual use, resulting in a species’ gradual adaptation).

In the 1870s, having read the Origin of Species (twice) and little else on the subject, Butler wrote his first book on evolution, entitled Life and Habit. Favouring the notion of wilful adaptation over the apparent arbitrariness of natural selection, Butler arrived at a ‘Lamarckian’ viewpoint independently – only discovering Lamarck’s work when a friend pointed out the overlap. Contrary to his original intention, Butler was forced to admit that Life and Habit had ‘resolved itself into a downright attack upon [Darwin’s] view of evolution, and a defence of what I conceive to be Lamarck’s’, and spent the rest of his life defending his opposition to Darwin.

Conservation of Butler’s Lamarck volumes

This two-volume set contains numerous annotations and translations made by Butler as he proceeded through the French text seeking a scientific precedent for his own ideas about how evolution worked. It is potentially a valuable resource for scholars interested in the history of evolutionary thought, showing how one nineteenth-century theorist engaged with earlier ideas in an attempt to promote the public understanding of science.

Prior to the commencement of the Butler Project, both volumes were in a very poor condition. The original thin paper covers, designed to be economical and temporary, had begun to disintegrate, and the sewing holding the blocks of pages together had almost completely broken down.

Joanna Kay, book conservator at the Cambridge Colleges’ Conservation Consortium, took the volumes apart and used a special dry-cleaning method to remove surface dirt from the paper. Jo carefully lifted off the remaining spine fragments and painstakingly reassembled them on Japanese paper. She also used Japanese paper adhered with wheat starch paste to repair and support the fragile edges of the original covers.

Once repaired the volumes were re-sewn, given new spine-linings, and laced into new paper wrappers. A made-to-measure box was then constructed from archival-grade materials, ensuring the volumes could be stored and accessed without incurring further damage over time.

Sheep-brand

Emigration was the compromise Butler and his father reached after Butler refused to join the church and his father refused to fund an artistic career. Arriving in New Zealand in 1860, Butler explored the little-known territories of the South Island and settled on an estate of 8000 acres adjacent to the Rangitata River. Naming his run ‘Mesopotamia’ (a name it still bears), he built a hut to accommodate himself and the few workers he had co-opted, and, with no prior experience, established a sheep-station. Within a year he had 3000 sheep under his charge.

Butler’s brand – the unique mark used to identify his flocks – was registered in the Brand Book for Canterbury on 26 November 1860. Its design is a candlestick, alluding to the tallow candles (made from mutton fat) which were commonly produced at sheep-stations.

The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as Given by the Four Evangelists, Critically Examined

This anonymous pamphlet crystallised out of Butler’s reading and thinking during his New Zealand years. Analysing the accounts of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus given in the Gospels, Butler argues that the Resurrection was no miracle, but the result of Jesus losing and later regaining consciousness. Although this theory wasn’t new, it was uncommon in England – and especially surprising from the pen of a Canon’s son. Butler had the work printed privately, acknowledging that ‘no publisher of position will publish heresy so rank as mine’.

In the preface Butler criticises the ‘intellectual cowardice’ of the English in refusing to discuss and challenge ‘the most important of all subjects’, asserting that ‘we shall do ourselves some permanent mischief if we continue so intolerant of the fair exercise of the reason’. In September 1865 Butler sent a copy of the pamphlet to Charles Darwin, prompting their first written exchanges. ‘We have read it with much interest’, Darwin replied. ‘I particularly agree with all you say in your preface.’

The Way of All Flesh (1903)
 

Butler drafted his semi-autobiographical novel between 1873 and 1884, but refused to publish it during his lifetime. The narrative charts the development of Ernest Pontifex, a weak boy starved of familial affection, who grows up to reject the tenets of his formal education and his father’s authoritarian brand of Christianity. As Ernest struggles to make his own way in the world he learns to recognise the foibles in human nature, eventually becoming an author of controversial literature aimed at correcting a flawed society.

Following its publication in 1903, the novel was swiftly acknowledged as one of the most important critiques of Victorianism of its time. It is now seen as a precursor to early 20th-century modernist fiction, with many established and emerging writers, such as Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster, admitting to being affected by the book.

The Butler family portrait (c. 1865)

This photograph captures the formality and severity that characterised the Butler household. Canon Thomas Butler (seated right) ruled Langar Rectory with an unflinching commitment to strict orthodox principles, which overshadowed his children’s upbringing and led to a complex and conflicted relationship with his son. The adult Samuel noted: ‘MY MOST IMPLACABLE ENEMY from childhood onward has certainly been my father. I doubt not whether I could not make a friend of my brother more easily than I could turn my father into a cordial genial well-wisher.’

When Butler emigrated to New Zealand in 1859, not one of his relations came to see him off. When they weren’t directly opposed to his work and ideas they generally remained indifferent.

Family Prayers (1864)

Butler’s best-known and most frequently exhibited painting encapsulates, with striking honesty, his attitude to Victorian piety. The naïve quality of the work was unusual for its time and shows Butler’s individual style before he underwent formal training at art school, where students were instead encouraged to imitate the old masters. At the top of the picture, in pencil, Butler has written:

 I did this in 1864, and if I had gone on doing things out of my own head

instead of making studies I shd have been all right.

A Fir Tree (1868)

This beautiful sketch reveals Butler’s excellent draftsmanship and attention to detail, which enhances many of his later works. His approach to his subject here is thought to have been influenced by his reading of John Ruskin’s The Elements of Drawing (1857).

Art has no end in view save the emphasizing and recording in the most effective way some strongly felt interest or affection. Where either interest, or desire to record with good effect is wanting, there is but sham art, or none at all: where both these are fully present, no matter how rudely and inarticulately, there is great art. – Samuel Butler, Notebooks

Mr Heatherley’s Holiday: An Incident in Studio Life (1874)

Having achieved financial independence through his farming activities in New Zealand, Butler settled in London and pursued his ambition of becoming a painter. He studied first at the South Kensington Museum and Cary’s Art School in Bloomsbury, then (from 1867 onwards) exclusively at Heatherley’s in Newman Street. His study of Thomas Heatherley mending the school skeleton is his largest and most impressive painting. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874 and the original is now in the Tate.

Even this ‘important’ picture, as Butler referred to it, was founded on a joke: the skeleton at Heatherley’s was always getting knocked about, because the students would dress it up in costumes and dance with it, and Mr Heatherley famously never went on holiday, preferring to stay in London to maintain his studio.

Mr Heatherley Himself

This photograph was taken by Butler as a study for his painting Mr Heatherley’s Holiday.

When I was studying painting in my kind old friend Mr. Heatherley’s studio, I remember hearing a student ask how long a man might hope to go on improving. Mr. Heatherley said: “As long as he is not satisfied with his own work.” – Samuel Butler, in a letter to O.T.J. Alpers, 17 February 1902

Rose the model (c. 1865)

Rose was a model at Heatherley’s. In his Notebooks Butler commented: ‘Rose, the model, had the finest torso I ever saw … All the markings which we see in the antique and accept, though we never see them in real life, were not only there but in as full development as I ever saw in the antique … I understood Rose got this wonderful development of arms and torso through turning a sausage machine, from which he seems to have ground beauty into his own body. I suppose he ground his sausages to the Lord.’

This photograph is one of the earliest Butler ever took.

Forbes-Robertson in a suit of Heatherley’s ‘property’ armour (c. 1870)

A fellow student at Heatherley’s, Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853-1937) went on to become one of the finest actors of the nineteenth century, particularly famed for his portrayal of Hamlet. This early photograph by Butler shows Forbes-Robertson posing in a suit of armour they found lying around in the back room at Heatherley’s.

Artist’s equipment

Samuel Butler’s sketching portfolio, paint brushes and tin paint box containing used watercolours. His camping-stool, used for sketching in the field, is also in the collection.

Sometimes I find myself painting almost very well, and then I make horrid failures … I work without interruption and very hard: my average is fully 7 hours a day at painting independently of music – and writing. – Samuel Butler, in a letter of 28 February 1867

Otford, Kent, from inside the church looking out (1879)

Throughout his adult life Butler made frequent excursions out of London, by train and on foot, to sketch, paint and take photographs. Kent was a regular destination.

Pocket map of Brighton and Sussex Coast

Butler was a fan of the railways, using them as a starting point for extended walks in the countryside and along the coastal paths of South East England. A number of Ordnance maps, used by Butler to plan and record his journeys, are preserved in the collection. Many are marked with red ink lines showing the impressive distances Butler covered (many hundreds of miles on this map alone), and notes in pencil of some of the stations he passed through.

Pocket watch and chain

Butler inherited a gold pocket watch and chain from his grandfather, but was robbed of the watch in Hyde Park (he managed to keep hold of the chain on that occasion). He replaced the watch with this silver one, which he wore with the original gold chain until a second robber took possession of that, in Fetter Lane. Butler then purchased the silver chain you can see attached to the watch now. He bequeathed the set to his friend and valet, Alfred Cathie, who wore it until 1919 when it was declared beyond repair.

Sandwich case

Butler took this tin sandwich case with him on his Sunday walks and sketching excursions.

Snap-shots taken by Samuel Butler Esq. (1892)

Amateur photography became possible for the first time during the 1880s. Butler purchased a Kodak Detective camera in 1888, and proved a prolific and highly skilled photographer, capturing scenes of the ordinary as well as the extraordinary.

This is the second of five albums, which together contain around 1700 prints and document Butler’s European travels, his views of street life, and his personal take on architecture and art. The majority of his original glass plate negatives are also preserved in the collection, and have undergone digitisation.

Digitization of Butler’s glass plate negatives

During the 1880s, ‘dry plates’ replaced collodion ‘wet plates’ as a staple piece of photographic equipment.  Dry plates are thin pieces of glass prepared with a light-sensitive emulsion of silver halides suspended in gelatin, on which a negative image forms when exposed to light.

Being pre-prepared, dry plates enabled photographers to work more freely outside and to travel with their negatives before developing them. Samuel Butler’s snapshots provide some of the best early examples of this method.

Digital scan of glass plate negative D64.11

The positive print in Butler's photograph album - IX/Albums/4/3/1

About 1500 of Butler’s negatives are preserved in the collection. Being made of glass, these are very fragile. They are also covered in century-old chemicals, which make their condition unstable and the images prone to deterioration and fading. To slow down the process of deterioration as much as possible, all the plates have been removed from their original envelopes and boxes, and rehoused in archival four-flap envelopes and acid-free boxes.

   

The original, acidic boxes and envelopes (above) and their acid-free replacements (below)

To preserve the images, the plates are currently being digitised. This involves scanning each negative to a very high resolution, using professional equipment. The digital image files are stored on disks, so that the images can be readily accessed by researchers without the original plates having to be handled.

Bust of George Frideric Handel

Butler’s love of music developed early in his life. As a schoolboy he looked forward to hearing his favourite aunt playing Handel overtures on the piano, and he soon learned to play them himself. He would sell his school books to finance his collection of Handel’s music, published in cheap editions.

This miniature marble bust used to stand on the mantelpiece in Butler’s rooms at Clifford’s Inn, London.

‘Butler playing Handel’, by James Ferguson

‘Of all dead men Handel has had the largest place in my thoughts’, Butler wrote in his notebook in 1883. ‘In fact, I should say he and his music have been the central fact in my life ever since I was old enough to know of the existence of either music or life. All day long – whether I am writing or painting or walking – but always – I have his music in my head, and if I lose sight of it and of him for an hour or two, as of course I sometimes do, this is as much as I do. I believe I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never been a day since I was 13 without having Handel in my mind many times over.’

James Ferguson was a fellow art school student with Butler.

Notes from music lessons (1890s)

In 1888 Butler published Narcissus: A Dramatic Cantata, a ‘jeu d’esprit’ charting the fate of a shepherding couple who abandon pastoral pursuits to speculate on the Stock Exchange. Butler’s reverence for Handel shone through the piece; the playwright George Bernard Shaw, who often championed Butler’s work, noted that the music was invested with ‘a ridiculously complete command of the Handelian manner and technique’.

While working on his next musical composition, Ulysses, Butler enrolled in counterpoint lessons with the celebrated musicologist, teacher, pianist and composer William Smyth Rockstro (1823-95). With a devotion to Handel in common, they quickly became friends.

The Odyssey, translated by Samuel Butler

Butler’s education at Shrewsbury School gave him an excellent grounding in Classical languages and literature, which he pursued at St John’s, graduating with First Class Honours in 1859. Thirty years later, researching for his dramatic oratorio Ulysses, Butler revisited the Greek text of the Odyssey and decided to translate it into English prose ‘for the use of those who cannot read the original’.

Butler took delight in the very domestic and mundane aspects of the Odyssey. ‘Nothing can well be more franchement bourgeois & unheroic’, he wrote to his sister, calling Ulysses (Odysseus) a ‘servant’s hall hero’. While his down-to-earth approach annoyed Classical scholars, contemporary reviewers praised Butler’s ‘vivid and direct’ language. Butler’s is said to be one of only two translations James Joyce used in writing his epic Ulysses (1922).

This photograph shows the style of Butler’s work in progress – with additions and improvements squeezed between the lines, or cut out and pasted over the top. The red crayon lines mark phrases and passages that crop up in the original Greek versions of both the Odyssey and the Iliad – evidence, as far as Butler was concerned, that the poems had different authors.

The Iliad of Homer, translated by Samuel Butler

The Iliad, an ancient Greek epic by the poet Homer, narrates the story of the Trojan War. The Odyssey was generally considered a companion piece to it. Rereading the poems as an adult, Butler was struck by a radical notion: that the Odyssey was not the work of Homer, but of a ‘brilliant, high-spirited’ young woman, originating from Trapani in Sicily.

Hoping the controversy would entice a new publisher to take on his translations, Butler fleshed out a book-length argument entitled The Authoress of the Odyssey. Eventually, following numerous rejections, Longman’s agreed to publish all three books.

Conservation of the Iliad and Odyssey manuscripts

Both manuscripts were deposited in a fragile condition, with their thin paper covers having suffered substantial wear and tear. Loose dirt had also gathered in the heads of the text block (i.e. at the top edges of the leaves) of the Odyssey manuscript, encouraging the growth of white mould. Using a vulcanised rubber smoke-sponge over an air-bench, Edward Cheese and Bridget Warrington, of the Cambridge Colleges’ Conservation Consortium, were able to remove the dirt and mould.

Before treatment

After treatment

The Iliad manuscript had to be flattened, using a low-temperature tacking iron through a protective layer of silicon paper. The covers of both manuscripts were then repaired using Japanese handmade paper, and the weakened page-edges and tears were repaired using a fine Japanese tissue and purified wheat-starch paste. Protective Melinex® wrappers were fitted to both manuscripts, affording the covers extra protection, and each manuscript was housed in a made-to-measure drop-back box.

Letters from E.M. Forster to Henry Festing Jones (1909-13)

  

Five years after The Way of All Flesh first made an impact on a generation of emerging writers, Butler’s friend and collaborator Henry Festing Jones initiated a series of events, known as the ‘Erewhon Dinners’, to keep Butler’s memory alive. Many notable literary, artistic and social figures of the time assembled at these occasions, which were hosted annually from 1908 to 1914.

The novelist E.M. Forster (1879-1970) was one such attendee. Many years later, in a radio broadcast, Forster identified Butler as one of the authors (along with Jane Austen and Proust) who had most influenced his writing and his view of life.

If Butler had not lived, many of us would now be a little deader than we are, a little less aware of the tricks and traps in life, and of our own obtuseness. His value, indeed, resides not in his rightness over this or that, not in his happy hits, not even in the frequent excellence of his prose and verse, but in the quality of his mind. He had an independent mind. – E.M. Forster, in ‘The Butler Legacy’ (broadcast, 1952)

Letters from George Bernard Shaw to Henry Festing Jones (1912-15)

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was a regular commentator on Butler’s works. In the preface to his own play Major Barbara (written in 1905), Shaw expressed bewilderment at the fact that ‘so extraordinary a study of English life’ as The Way of All Flesh hadn’t caused more of a stir among the public, and declared Butler ‘the greatest English writer of the latter half of the 19th century’.

Shaw attended and gave speeches at some of the Erewhon Dinners. The remark in his 1912 letter (displayed here) about mankind being ‘of two sexes’ refers to the fact that previously only men had been invited to the dinners. The last dinner, in 1914, put an end to this custom, and Mrs Shaw was invited to set the date.

Letter from Robert Graves to Henry Festing Jones (1924)

Robert Graves (1895-1985) was a poet, translator and novelist who specialized in the literature of Classical Greece and Rome. Having encountered the theory of the authoress of the Odyssey in Butler’s work, Graves developed the idea into the novella Homer’s Daughter (1955).