The botanical family of Samuel Butler

Abstract

and there it would have at once become apparent that this obscure Victorian botanist is none other than the father of the novelist Samuel Butler and thus the model for the appalling Theobald Pontifex in that masterpiece of autobiographical fiction, The way ofall flesh. Had there been botanists among the students of literature who have looked into the background of that classic, they too might have come to this discovery from the opposite direction. For not only is Theobald Pontifex depicted as the owner of a hortus siccus, but the various accounts of Samuel Butler's family which have been published make it clear that botany was one of his father's more especial interests. One of them4 indeed even quotes tributes to his work in this direction, making his botanical identity quite explicit.