[2] The Cambridge History of English and American Literature judges that it "has less of the free imaginative play of its predecessor…but, in sharp brilliance of wit and criticism, in intellectual unity and coherence, it surpasses Erewhon".

[3] Erewhon, set in a thinly disguised New Zealand, ended with the escape of its unnamed protagonist from the native Erewhonians by balloon.

Higgs returns to Erewhon and meets his former lover Yram, who is now the mother of his son George.

On March 24, 1901, he wrote to George Bernard Shaw, conceding that the book was "far more wicked than Erewhon", and asking for his advice.

[5] Shaw replied recommending his own publisher, Grant Richards, and lost no time introducing Butler to him.