Selections from the Notes of Samuel Butler Edited by Henry Festing Jones (GT993)

Published 1930: New Travellers' Library Edition / Hardcover / Very Good Condition

Original blue decorated cloth with gilt titles and decoration on the spine. 222 + very clean and bright pages, speckled foxing on the endpapers and edges. Boards slightly rubbed with time. (GT993)

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"The Note-Books of Samuel Butler" by Samuel Butler is a collection of personal reflections and observations arranged and edited by Henry Festing Jones, likely written in the late 19th century. This compilation captures Butler's contemplations on a vast array of subjects, including philosophy, literature, evolution, and the complexities of life itself, reflecting the nuanced perspectives of a thinker whose work interrogated societal norms and personal identity.

Early in his life Samuel Butler began to carry a note-book and to write down in it anything he wanted to remember; it might be something he heard some one say, more commonly it was something he said himself. In one of these notes he gives a reason for making them:

“One’s thoughts fly so fast that one must shoot them; it is no use trying to put salt on their tails.”

So he bagged as many as he could hit and preserved them, re-written on loose sheets of paper which constituted a sort of museum stored with the wise, beautiful, and strange creatures that were continually winging their way across the field of his vision. As he became a more expert marksman his collection increased and his museum grew so crowded that he wanted a catalogue. In 1874 he started an index, and this led to his reconsidering the notes, destroying those that he remembered having used in his published books and re-writing the remainder. [Google Books]