Samuel Butler The Way Of All Flesh

The Way of All Flesh (1903) is a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler which attacks Victorian-era hypocrisy. Written between 1873 and 1884, it traces four generations of the Pontifex family. Butler dared not publish it during his lifetime, but when it was published it was accepted as part of the general reaction against Victorianism. Read more on Wikipedia

Lowry refers to the novel in a letter to Carol Brown dated April 1926; "Then I tried to read 'The Way of All Flesh'........ Then I went on trying to read the 'The Way of All Flesh' (Collected Letters Vol 1 Pg. 7).  Lowry again refers to Samuel Butler in another letter to Carol Brown dated May 1926 when he tells her about what Rev. Harry Bisseker, the Leys's Headmaster had been saying about him to W. H. Balgarnie treasurer and president of the Leys Fortnightly committee; "that...I had been reading Alec Waugh, but I had been reading Noel Coward, Michael Arlen, Eugene O'Neill, and Samuel Butler." (Collected Letters Vol 1 Pg. 25).