1910 Sangorski & Sutcliffe binding - The Way Of All Flesh by Samuel Butler. First US Edition.

Author: Butler, Samuel.
Title: The Way of All Flesh.
Publisher: New York, E.P. Dutton & Company, 1910. First US Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7.5 " X 5 ".
Pages: 420 pages.
Binding: Attractive, beautiful, and near fine binding finely bound in burgundy half morocco leather by Sangosrski & Sutcliffe, London (hinges fine) with matching marbled covers under a protective removable mylar cover. Upper edge gilt.
Content: Very good, near fine content (bright, tight and clean - as shown). 

The book: Very nicely bound first US edition of The Way of All Flesh (sometimes called Ernest Pontifex, or the Way of All Flesh) -- a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler that 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 in UK (in 1903) it was accepted as part of the general reaction against Victorianism. A. A. Milne, author of Winnie-the-Pooh, wrote about it in one of his essays "A Household Book", published in a collection of his essays, Not That It Matters: "Once upon a time I discovered Samuel Butler; not the other two, but the one who wrote The Way of All Flesh, the second-best novel in the English language. I say the second-best, so that, if you remind me of Tom Jones, or The Mayor of Casterbridge, or any other that you fancy, I can say, of course, that one is the best."

The author: Samuel Butler (4 December 1835 – 18 June 1902) was an English novelist and critic, best known for the satirical utopian novel Erewhon (1872) and the semi-autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh, published posthumously in UK in 1903 in an altered version and published as he wrote it not until 1964. Both novels have remained in print since. In other studies, he examined Christian orthodoxy, evolutionary thought, and Italian art and made prose translations of the Iliad and Odyssey that are still consulted.

The binder: Sangorski & Sutcliffe is a firm of bookbinders established in London in 1901. It is considered to be one of the most important bookbinding companies of the 20th century, famous for its luxurious jeweled bindings that used real gold and precious stones in their book covers.