Butler's authority on literature came through his posthumous novel, "The Way of All Flesh." Butler completed it in the 1880's but it was left unpublished until 1903 to protect his family. The novel was so modern in its time of release that it influenced a new school of writing, predominantly through its use of psychological examination and analysis of the fictional characters of the story. "The Way of All Flesh" is a satiric portrait of Butler's own childhood reflecting the worst aspects of Victorian family life: of extreme strictness, embellished godliness, and hypocrisy. It consists of mostly polemic essays in which Butler attacks the world of his childhood growing up in a clergyman's family and expresses his basic philosophy of common sense.
