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  • Book cover of Jonathan Swift

    This 'Norton Critical Edition' presents the rull range of Swift's writing, including not only the major literary prose works but also substantial poetic and political writings. The texts are accompanied by annotations and an introduction.

  • Book cover of Gulliver’s Travels By Jonathan Swift

    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. When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my father: where, by the assistance of him and my uncle John, and some other relations, I got forty pounds, and a promise of thirty pounds a year to maintain me at Leyden: there I studied physic two years and seven months, knowing it would be useful in long voyages.

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    "Gulliver's Travels" is a satire by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature.The authorJonathan Swift (30 November 1667 - 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

  • Book cover of Gulliver's Travels

    A wickedly clever satire uses comic inversions to offer telling insights into the nature of man and society. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Gulliver's Travels describes the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon. In Lilliput he discovers a world in miniature; towering over the people and their city, he is able to view their society from the viewpoint of a god. However, in Brobdingnag, a land of giants, tiny Gulliver himself comes under observation, exhibited as a curiosity at markets and fairs. In Laputa, a flying island, he encounters a society of speculators and projectors who have lost all grip on everyday reality; while they plan and calculate, their country lies in ruins. Gulliver's final voyage takes him to the land of the Houyhnhnms, gentle horses whom he quickly comes to admire - in contrast to the Yahoos, filthy bestial creatures who bear a disturbing resemblance to humans. This text, based on the first edition of 1726, reproduces all the original illustrations and includes an introduction by Robert Demaria, Jr, which discusses the ways Gulliver's Travels has been interpreted since its first publication. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was born in Dublin. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

  • Book cover of Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World

    The author of these Travels, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, is my ancient and intimate friend; there is likewise some relation between us on the mother's side. About three years ago, Mr. Gulliver growing weary of the concourse of curious people coming to him at his house in Redriff, made a small purchase of land, with a convenient house, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, his native country; where he now lives retired, yet in good esteem among his neighbours. Although Mr. Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire, where his father dwelt, yet I have heard him say his family came from Oxfordshire; to confirm which, I have observed in the churchyard at Banbury in that county, several tombs and monuments of the Gullivers. Before he quitted Redriff, he left the custody of the following papers in my hands, with the liberty to dispose of them as I should think fit. I have carefully perused them three times. The style is very plain and simple; and the only fault I find is, that the author, after the manner of travellers, is a little too circumstantial. There is an air of truth apparent through the whole; and indeed the author was so distinguished for his veracity, that it became a sort of proverb among his neighbours at Redriff, when any one affirmed a thing, to say, it was as true as if Mr. Gulliver had spoken it.

  • Book cover of Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

    Lemuel Gulliver, doctor on a merchant ship, is shipwrecked on the island of Lilliput, where everything, beginning by the inhabitants, is large a fifteenth of persons and objects we know. In the second part instead Gulliver visits Brobdingnag, where the ratio is turned upside down and where the doctor becomes the of the King's daughter, who keeps him between her playthings. In the third part Gulliver visits Laputa and the continent that has Lagado as capital, where the satire is addressed against philosophers, historians and inventors. In the island of Glubdubdrib, then, Gulliver evokes the shadows of the great man of the antiquity and from their answers he discovers their bad habits and meanness; while among the immortal Struldbrug, he notices that the largest sadness for the man would be the perspective of not giving an end to the tedium vitae. In the fourth part then, the virtuous easiness of the Houyhnhnm horses contrasts with the nauseous brutality of the Yahoo, beasts with a human aspect.

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    'I felt something alive moving on my left leg ... when bending my Eyes downwards as much as I could. I perceived it to be a human Creature not six inches high Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and the brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour. Swift's savage satire view mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with an uncompromising reflection of ourselves.

  • Book cover of Gulliver's Travels

    Gulliver's Travels, whose full title is Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, (1726, amended 1735), is a prose satire by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, that is both a satire on human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature. He himself claimed that he wrote Gulliver's Travels "to vex the world rather than divert it".

  • Book cover of Gulliver'S Travels [Paperback] Jonathan Swift

    Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift, is a classic adventure story that follows the journey of Lemuel Gulliver. Gulliver's encounters with the inhabitants of strange lands take him to places beyond his wildest imaginings, and lead to a series of misadventures. Along the way, he meets some of the most imaginative and fantastical creatures ever written. Filled with humor and wit, Gulliver's Travels is a timeless classic that is sure to delight readers of all ages. With its engaging characters and captivating story, it is a must-read for anyone looking for a classic adventure.

  • Book cover of Gulliver's Travels