Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited, considered by many the most important works of their kind produced in the nineteenth century, won a place for their author as one of the great satirists of all time.  Samuel Butler has been ranked in the glittering company of Voltaire and Swift, and, like his literary predecessors, he spared neither church nor state, literature or science from the attacks of his sharp wit and ironic commentaries.  Underneath his irrepressible, malicious laughter however, he waged a serious war with bigotry, sham and stupidity.