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Samuel Butler

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From: Encyclopedia of World Biography
Date: 20040101
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Samuel Butler

The English novelist and essayist Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was a critic of established religious, social, and scientific ideas.

Samuel Butler was born on Dec. 4, 1835, in Langar, near Bingham, Nottinghamshire, the son of the local vicar. In a time of common paternal absolutism, his childhood seems to have been bleak and graceless. After taking a degree at Cambridge, he came into open conflict with his father over the question of his future profession, and at last he emigrated to New Zealand to become a sheep farmer. But though free of his father, he was not free ...

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