I've recently finished re-reading, with the greatest delight, Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh. This time through, the many similarities between Butler's novel and Huckleberry Finn jumped out at me. (Butler even did his last work on the manuscript in 1884, the year Huckleberry Finn appeared; though 'Flesh' came out posthumously, in 1903.) Above all, what strikes me is the similar treatment of the hero's struggle to wriggle out from under what he has been taught. Like Huck, the young Ernest Pontifex believes himself to be a depraved soul who can somehow never be "good," as those around him are good. He loathes every priggish thing that the upright people Huck would call "the quality" stand for, without being remotely able to confront his loathing squarely. He despises Sunday, he feels endlessly guilty for not being comfortable around "nice" people . . . and on and on. This leads me to two questions. 1. Can anyone recommend a good article or book chapter comparing The Way of All Flesh and Huckleberry Finn? I would greatly prefer something written in English to something written in academic flatulence, but will be happy to hear of anything useful. 2. My second question is much broader. It also struck me that both 'Flesh' and 'Huck' may reflect a widespread late-Victorian assault on sham, cant, and many forms of hypocrisy. That is, I've started viewing Butler's book and Twain's in the light of Ibsen's most shocking plays, and of Tolstoy's assaults on the hollowness of bourgeois life (esp. in "The Death of Ivan Ilych")....And then I started thinking about Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw.... So..... Can anyone recommend a good general study of later Victorian attacks on sham, mealy-mouthed lies, hypocrisies and the like? Many thanks, Mark Coburn