Gulliver's Travels: and Alexander Pope's Verses on Gulliver's Travels (Vintage Classics) - Softcover

Swift, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 009951205X ISBN 13: 9780099512059

Publisher: Vintage Classics, 2007

Synopsis

In the course of his famous travels, Gulliver is captured by miniature people who wage war on each other because of religious disagreement over how to crack eggs, is sexually assaulted by giants, visits a floating island, and decides that the society of horses is better than that of his fellow man. Swift's tough, filthy and incisive satire has much to say about the state of the world today and is presented here in its unexpurgated entirety.

About this title

Review:

"Swift's world-famous satire was an instant bestseller...his vision is dark, often verging on the obscene" (Robert McCrum Guardian)

"It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery" (John Gay (author of The Beggar's Opera))

"It has entered the iconography of western culture as perhaps no other single novel, giving words to the English language and inspiring remarkably diverse acts of homage... A political comedy, an existentialist meditation, a bleak thriller about an outsider caught between worlds...at the heart of Swift's masterwork is an ennobling sadness, a lament for a world gone mad" (Joseph O'Connor Guardian)

"Among the six indispensable books in world literature" (George Orwell)

"Everyone standing for political office . . . should have a compulsory examination in Gulliver's Travels" (Michael Foot)

From the Publisher:

Lemuel Gulliver, ship's surgeon and castaway, has awaken in Lilliput, where the size of the tiny inhabitants makes their concerns and quarrels seem ridiculous. A second journey takes him to the kingdom of giants, where again his size gives him new adrift by pirates, Gulliver's final voyage brings him to the land of the Houyhnhms, horses with reason, who share their domain with the brutish Yahoos. He returns to England a changed man.

Swift's corrosive satire embraces all aspects of humanity. It is witty when dealing with foibles and frailty, bitterly when facing pride and stupidity, but compassionate and unsentimental when focused upon suffering.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Classics
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 009951205X
• ISBN 13: 9780099512059
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352