Jonathan Swift : The Reluctant Rebel

Stubbs, John

ISBN 10: 0670922056 / ISBN 13: 9780670922055

Published by Penguin Books, Limited, 2016

About this Item

Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects.

Seller Inventory # GRP101646382

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Jonathan Swift : The Reluctant Rebel
• Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670922056
• ISBN 13: 9780670922055
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 4th.
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 2.152 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

Born in Ireland in 1667, Jonathan Swift defiantly clung to his Englishness. He refused to relinquish this attachment even as corruption and injustice gradually led him to turn against the English government. In a long life, Swift proved a reluctant rebel, though one with a relish for the fight, and implacable when provoked - a voice of withering disenchantment unrivalled in English. But he was also an inspired humorist, a beloved companion, a conscientious Anglican minister, as well as a hoaxer and a teller of tales. His anger against abuses of power would produce the most famous satire of the English language - Gulliver's Travels as well as the Drapier Papers and the unparallelled Modest Proposal, in which he imagined the poor of Ireland farming their infants for the tables of wealthy colonists.

John Stubbs' biography sets out to capture the dirt and beauty of a world that Swift both scorned and sought to amend. It follows Swift through his many battles, for and against authority, and in his many contradictions, as a priest who sought to uphold the dogma of his church; as a man who was quite prepared to defy convention, not least in his unshakeable attachment to an unmarried woman, his 'Stella'; and as a writer whose vision showed that no single creed holds all of the answers.

About the Author

John Stubbs was born in 1977 and studied English at Oxford and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge where he completed a doctorate in 2005. Donne: The Reformed Soul was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. Reprobates was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.