Erewhon

Samuel Butler drew on his years as a sheep farmer in New Zealand to imagine Erewhon, a hidden country reached over a forbidding mountain range. Its name is a near-anagram of ‘nowhere,’ and its customs invert those of Victorian England: sickness is punished as a crime, while thieves and swindlers are treated as invalids and nursed back to health. The most startling section, ‘The Book of the Machines,’ argues that machines might one day evolve consciousness and supplant humanity, a strikingly early meditation on artificial intelligence. Butler aims his satire at religion, morality, and complacent respectability while keeping a perfectly straight face. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.