Gulliver’s Travels

In four sections, Gulliver’s Travels, also known as Journeys into Several Remote Nations of the World, Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and Then a Captain of Several Ships is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that satirizes human nature and the 'travelers’ tales' literary subgenre. It is Swift’s best-known full-length work and an English literature classic. Swift claimed that he wrote Gulliver’s Travels 'to vex rather than divert the world.' The book was an instant success. 'It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery,' English dramatist John Gay said. In 2015, Robert McCrum released his list of the 100 best novels of all time, calling Gulliver’s Travels a 'satirical masterpiece.' The journey begins with a brief preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver describes his life and history before his voyages. Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck on his first voyage and becomes a prisoner of a race of tiny people, less than 6 inches (15 cm) tall, who live on the island country of Lilliput. On October 28, 1726, the first edition was published in two volumes for 8s. 6d. Motte published Gulliver’s Travels anonymously, and several sequels (Memoirs of the Court of Lilliput...), parodies (Two Lilliputian Odes, The First on the Famous Engine With Which Captain Gulliver Extinguished the Palace Fire...), and 'keys' (Gulliver Decipher’d and Lemuel Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World Compendiously Method) were mostly published anonymously (or pseudonymously) and quickly forgotten. Swift had nothing to do with them and renounced them in Faulkner’s 1735 edition. Swift’s friend Alexander Pope wrote five verses on Gulliver’s Travels that Swift liked so much that he included them in the book’s second edition, though they are rarely included. In 1735, an Irish publisher named George Faulkner published a collection of Swift’s works, Volume III, including Gulliver’s Travels.