Full Description
In this narrative of the gullible ship's doctor Lemuel Gulliver and his extraordinary travels, Jonathan Swift takes readers through a series of apparently child-like fantasy worlds of tiny people and giants, floating islands and talking horses. But through this fantastic journey, he also gave to literature an enduring model of mankind's follies, vulnerabilities, vanities, and self-destructiveness. Dangerously topical in its own time and much debated ever since, Gulliver's Travels is among those works of English literature that entrap and challenge readers in every period.
This edition uses the 1735 edition as the copy text, retaining the original, unmodernized text. Historical appendices provide a context for the novel's literary models, scientific influences, and complex political and religious allusions.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Jonathan Swift: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Gulliver's Travels
Appendix A: Preliminary Correspondence
"Richard Sympson" to Benjamin Motte (8 August 1726)
Benjamin Motte to "Richard Sympson" (11 August 1726)
"Richard Sympson" to Benjamin Motte (13 August 1726)
Appendix B: Literary and Cultural Influences
From Lucian's True History (2nd century CE)
From Sir Thomas More, Utopia (1516)
From Cyrano de Bergerac, The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Worlds of the Moon and Sun (1657, 1662)
From William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World (1697)
Appendix C: Science, Politics, Religion
From Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society (1702)
From Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, A Dissertation Upon Parties (1735)
Jonathan Swift, Brotherly Love. A Sermon (1717)
Appendix D: Ireland
From William Molyneux, The Case of Ireland (1698)
From Jonathan Swift, The Drapier's First Letter (1724)
Jonathan Swift, A Short View of the State of Ireland (1728)
Appendix E: Contemporary Reception
Swift's Correspondence
John Gay and Alexander Pope to Swift ([7] November 1726)
Alexander Pope to Swift (16 November 1726)
Swift to Alexander Pope (17 November 1726)
"Lemuel Gulliver" to Mrs. Howard (28 November 1726)
Swift to Benjamin Motte (28 December 1727)
From Anon., A Letter from a Clergyman (1726)
Poems Attached to Gulliver's Travels (1727)
From John, Earl of Orrery, Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift (1752)
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