Lemuel Gulliver recounts his extraordinary voyages to four fantastical lands, from the tiny Lilliputians to the giant Brobdingnagians. Swift's 1726 English satire uses Gulliver's adventures to deliver sharp social and political commentary on human nature and 18th-century society.
The author gives some account of himself and family. His first inducements to travel. He is shipwrecked, and swims for his life, gets safe on shore in the country of Lilliput; is made a prisoner, and carried up the country. My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the third of five sons. He sent me to Emanuel College in Cambridge at fourteen years old, where I resided three years, and applied myself close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty allowance, being too great for a narrow fortune, I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London, with whom I continued four years. My father now and then sending me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning navigation, and other parts of the mathematics, useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be, some time or other, my fortune to do. Wh…Continue reading →
An Irish satirist and clergyman (1667-1745) who wielded his razor-sharp wit to expose human folly and political corruption. His masterpiece Gulliver's Travels revolutionized literature by disguising biting social commentary as fantastical adventure, while works like "A Modest Proposal" perfected the art of satirical irony that influences writers today. All works by Jonathan Swift →
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