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View allErewhon Revisited
Butler
1901
Twenty years after Erewhon, its narrator sneaks back to find himself worshipped as a god.
Erewhon Revisited
Samuel Butler · 1901
Butler's 1901 sequel takes the premise of his famous utopian satire and asks a sharper question: what actually happens in the weeks after a strange man vanishes in a balloon? The answer is Sunchildism — a full state religion, complete with rival high priests, invented scripture, and a cathedral, assembled almost entirely from honest confusion and self-interest. Higgs returns incognito to find his own escape has become a creation myth, while his son George, raised in Erewhon and unaware of his father's identity, works to keep the truth from destroying it. It is a colder, more procedural satire than its predecessor — less interested in inverted customs than in watching a religion get manufactured in real time.
28 chapters · 84,352 words · ~6.4 hr read
Contents
The Return
Higgs slips back into Erewhon in disguise, stumbles on Hanky and Panky plotting the new religion, and discovers the son he never knew he had.
The Growing Cult
Sunchildism hardens into doctrine — a temple is dedicated, a sermon is preached, and George works to keep his father one step ahead of discovery.
The Reckoning
The town's elders weigh what to do about the risen Sunchild in their midst, a compromise is struck, and Higgs makes his way home to die not long after.
The Brothers at the Statues
Years later, the narrator meets his half-brother George at the Erewhonian statues to hear the rest of the story firsthand.