Overview

Gulliver's Travels is one of the landmarks of world literature. Gulliver's adventures with the tiny but spirited Lilliputians, the giant inhabitants of Brobdingnag, the flying island of Laputa, and the rational horses of Houyhnmhnmland have become globally famous for their satirical wit and visionary creativity. Early editions credited Gulliver himself as the author, and many readers believed him to be a real person. Later commentators have variously described the work as proto-science fiction, as inspired children's literature and as a forerunner of the modern novel. The editor's introduction to this celebratory anniversary edition contextualises Gulliver's Travels in Swift's life and work as a whole while exploring its rich and remarkable afterlife. All the original illustrations and maps are included, as are the frontispiece portraits. Generous annotation explains textual details which might now seem obscure, and appendices contain additional documents and images to enhance contemporary understanding and enjoyment.

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9781009553179

Table of Contents

Reviews

'The new Cambridge edition of Swift's masterpiece is a splendid venture. David Womersley's extensive introduction is both magisterial and enlightening, and the Appendices, which include the unpublished Lindalino episode, will be a joy for confirmed Swiftians and new readers alike. Chapeau!' John Banville 'Three hundred years after its first, sensational publication, Jonathan Swift's satire seems to speak to us more urgently than ever, despite the well-meaning interference of many former editors. This remarkable new edition takes the reader back to Swift's original intentions, bringing Gulliver's Travels brilliantly to life in context as the classic of the eighteenth century that still deserves the closest attention in our own time. This exemplary work of scholarship is a revelation that restores this landmark of world literature in all its savage and inextinguishable majesty.' Robert McCrum 'This meticulous edition weaves together an illuminatingly edited text, a magisterial introduction and appendices including a fascinating, unpublished episode of resistance to authoritarian oppression, to give a fresh presentation of Gulliver's Travels as at once dangerous, highly personal to Swift, and socially purposeful as a work of satire. This anniversary edition fully reveals the breadth of Swift's extraordinary artistic and moral ambition.' Karen O'Brien, Vice-Chancellor of Durham University 'The perfect guide to the enthralling, bewildering, hilarious experience of reading Swift's satirical masterpiece.' Tom Keymer, author of Jane Austen: A Very Short Introduction

Author Information

David Womersley is Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature in the University of Oxford, is a Fellow of the British Academy, and was in 2018–19 a Fellow of the prestigious C. F. von Siemens Stiftung in Munich. He has published extensively on eighteenth-century literature and culture and is internationally celebrated for his expertise on Jonathan Swift and his writings. Professor Womersley's scholarly edition of Gulliver's Travels was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012, a major work which this accessible tercentenary edition now complements and augments.

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