A utopian classic with a rich legacy-influencing authors from Huxley
to Herbert and beyond-Erewhon satirizes Victorian society with biting
insight still relevant today.
When Higgs, a young traveler, stumbles upon the beautiful land of
Erewhon, he soon discovers that its seemingly ideal culture is founded
upon bizarre, unsettling beliefs. Crime is a sickness, while sickness is
a crime; the greatest scholarly achievement is unreason, and all
machines have been eliminated for fear of artificial intelligence. In a
society that suppresses originality, the traveler and his values are a
threat. Torn between escape and Arowhena, the woman he has grown to
love, Higgs must contend with Erewhon's strange ways-and with the
challenges they pose to his own beliefs.
Engaging with the work of Charles Darwin and inspired by the author's
time in colonial New Zealand, Erewhon is a bright, irreverent, and
enduring text about technology, religion, crime, and institutional
rigidity. This new edition of the 1872 classic arrives in honor of its
150th anniversary, featuring a brilliant introduction contextualizing
the book from one of New Zealand's great academic thinkers in science
fiction, Dr. Octavia Cade.
