Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels is one of the most popular works of fiction　published in England in the eighteenth century, and one of the　best satires ever written. This new Norton Critical Edition is　based on the 1726 text, the version that textual scholars now　maintain should be the basis for all modern editions of the
work. It is accompanied by extensive textual annotations and a　dozen illustrations.

　　Jonathan 'Isaac Bickerstaff' Swift (1667-1745)
　　Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland on 30 November 1667.Jonathan graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1686.
　　Gulliver's Travels was published in 1726, Jonathan's first big dive into prose. Though it's been pretty solidly labeled a children's book, it's also a great satire of the times that is pretty much beyond most children. It shows Jonathan's desire to encourage people to read deeper and not take things for granted: readers who paid attention could match all of Gulliver's tall tales with current events and long-term societal problems. In 1729 he wrote A Modest Proposal, supposedly written by an intelligent and objective "political arithmetician" who had carefully studied Ireland before making his proposal.

　　First published in 1726, this classic work of satire presents a world gone haywire, where humans, despite their pomposity and grandiose illusions, are no better than weak and helpless fools. Lemuel Gulliver's journeys take him to Lilliput, a country whose inhabitants are no more than six inches tall; to Brobdingnag, a land of giants; to Laputa, a flying island inhabited by absent-minded people; and to the land of Houyhnhnms, where horselike creatures rule with intelligence and courtesy over repulsive humanlike Yahoos. One of literature's lasting legacies, Swift's trenchant cautionary tale is a witty, allegorical depiction of people at their worst; yet it may also be read as an enchanting, playful children's story with universal appeal.

　　Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself in Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose six-inch height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the abstracted scientists of Laputa, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour.
Although Gulliver's journeys take us to strange and wonderful places, it is impossible to ignore the reflections of ourselves with which Swift peoples his realms, where humankind is seen in a satirical hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species. With its wild distortions, optical illusions and undertones of madness and the grotesque, Gulliver's Travels defies our expectations of a conventional traveller's tale. It is in fact a brillantly and rudelly subversive book.

Preface
The Text of Gulliver's Travels
　The Publisher to the Reader.
　The Contents.
　Travels
　Part I. A Voyage to Lilliput.
　Part II. A Voyage to Brobdingnag.
　Part III. A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib,
　Luggnag and Japan.
Part IV. A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms.
Contexts
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A Letter from Capt. Gulliver, to his Cousin Sympson[A Paragraph on Queen Anne]
[The Lindalinian Rebellion]
From Swift's Correspondence
Alexander Pope's Poems on Gulliver's Travels
A Lilliputian Ode on the Engine with which Captain
Gulliver extinguish'd the Flames of the Royal Palace
　Edmund Curll · From Observations, &c. Upon the Travels　of Lemuel Gulliver
[The Travels of Martinus Scriblerus]
William Dampier · From A New Voyage Round the　World
Samuel Sturmy · From The Mariner's Magazine
Frangois Rabelais · From Gargantua and Pantagruel,
　Book 5, Chapter 22
Robert Hooke · An Account of a Dog dissected
Criticism
Earl of Orrery · [Some Remarks on Gulliver's Voyage　to the Houyhnhnms]
Sir Walter Scott · [On Gulliver's Travels]
Pat Rogers · Gulliver's Glasses
Michael McKeon · [Virtue and Truth in Gulliver's　Travels]
J. A. Downie · The Political Significance of Gulliver's　Travels
J. Paul Hunter · Gulliver's Travels and the Novel
Laura Brown · [Reading Race and Gender in　Gulliver's Travels]
Douglas Lane Patey · Swift's Satire on "Science" and the Structure of Gulliver's Travels
Dennis Todd · The Hairy Maid at the Harpsichord: Some Speculations on the Meaning of Gulliver's Travels
Richard H. Rodino · "Splendide Mendax": Authors,
　Characters, and Readers in Gulliver's Travels
Irvin Ehrenpreis · Show and Tell in Gulliver's Travels
Janine Barchas · [The Paratext of The Travels: Gulliver's Many Faces]
Claude Rawson · Gulliver and Others: Reflections on Swift's 'T' Narrators
Howard D. Weinbrot · Swift, Horace, and Virgil: Brave　Lies, Dangerous Horses, and Truth
　Jonathan Swift: A Chronology
　Selected Bibliography