The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
The story is told by Overton, godfather of the central character.
The novel takes its origins in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to trace the emergence of Ernest from previous generations of the Pontifex family. John Pontifex was a carpenter; his son George was born into the world to become a publisher; George's son, Theobald, pushed by his father to become a minister, is manipulated into marrying Christina, the daughter of a pastor; the main character Ernest Pontifex is the eldest son of Theobald and Christina.
The author describes an antagonistic relationship between Ernest and his hypocritical and overbearing parents. Her aunt Alethea is aware of this relationship, but she dies before she can fulfill her purpose of thwarting the parents' evil influence on the boy. However, shortly before her death, she secretly passes a small fortune into Overton's hands, with the agreement that once Ernest is twenty-eight, he will be able to receive her.
As Ernest becomes a young man, he treads a bumpy theological road, reflecting the divisions and controversies in the Church of England in the Victorian era. Easily influenced by others in college, he starts out as an evangelical Christian and soon becomes a priest. Then he falls in love with the lure of the Supreme Church (and is deceived with most of his money by a fellow pastor). He decides that the way to regenerate the Church of England is to live among the poor, but the results are, in the first place, that his faith in the integrity of the Bible is badly damaged by a conversation with one of the poor whom he hoped to redeem and second, that under the pressure of poverty and theological doubt, he attempts a sexual assault on a woman who has mistakenly believed to have a dissolute morality.
This assault leads to a prison sentence. His parents deny him. His health deteriorates.
While he recovers, he learns to be a tailor and decides to make his profession once he is released from prison. He loses his Christian faith. He marries Ellen, a former maid of his parents; they have two children and together open a shop in the second-hand clothing sector. However, in due course he discovers that Ellen is both bigamous and alcoholic. At this point Overton intervenes and pays a salary to Ellen, who happily leaves with another for America. He employs Ernest and takes him on a trip to continental Europe.
In due course Ernest becomes 28 and receives the gift of his aunt Alethea. He returns to the family home until his mother's death; his father's influence over him diminishes as Theobald's position as a priest dwindles in relative stature, although Theobald eventually deliberately finds little ways to annoy him. Ernest becomes an author of controversial literature.
