Written between 1873 and 1884 and published posthumously in 1903, &quot;The Way of All Flesh&quot; is regarded by some as the first twentieth-century novel. Samuel Butler&#39;s autobiographical account of a harsh upbringing and troubled adulthood shines an iconoclastic light on the hypocrisy of a Victorian clerical family&#39;s domestic life. It also foreshadows the crumbling of nineteenth-century bourgeois ideals in the aftermath of the First World War, as well as the ways in which succeeding generations have questioned conventional values.<br /><br />Beginning with the life of John Pontifex, a carpenter, the novel traces four generations of the Pontifex family, each of which perpetuates the frustration and unhappiness of its predecessor largely as a result of parental repression. Only Ernest Pontifex, the great-grandson of John, is able to break the cycle. After being ordained a minister, serving a prison term because of a naive misunderstanding, and unwittingly entering into a bigamous marriage with the family&rsquo;s sluttish servant girl, Ernest providentially inherits enough money from a favourite aunt to change his life and become a writer.