Jonathan Swift

Samuel Johnson, who did not like Swift, said that A Tale of a Tub exhibits a vehemence and rapidity of mind, a copiousness of images, and vivacity of diction such as he afterwards never possessed or never exerted. And in his old age looking over the Tale, Swift called out to Mrs. Whiteway, Good God What a genius I had when I wrote that book Harold Bloom says that A Tale of a Tub is one of the handful of totally original works in the language. This new edition presents the work as an amazing comic book which puts it in a class with Rabelais' Pantagruel. Both of these works became banned books, greatly increasing the sales. In this edition for the first time the Narrator of the text is discovered to be an authentic comic-pathetic character, with cropped ears, ill-cured syphilis, and suicidal impulses, waiting to be admitted to Bedlam, the new insane asylum, as a terminal patient. This edition is also the first to recognize that the text of A Tale of a Tub is a mosaic, composed of quotations from other texts, which incidentally accounts for the necessity of many end notes.

An abridged version of the voyages of an eighteenth-century Englishman that carry him to such strange places as Lilliput, where people are six inches tall, and Brobdingnag, a land peopled by giants.

Jonathan Swift began stirring up trouble as soon as he appeared on England's literary scene in the early 1700s. In this new reprint of his classic short satires, Swift relates the clash between the ancient and modern books at King James's library ("The Battle of the Books") and wittily attacks astrological and almanac predictions ("Predictions for the Year 1708" and "The Accomplishment of the First of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions"). The title piece assails the Church and organized religion as "the great enemy to the freedom of thought and action." "Abolishing Christianity and Other Essays includes some of Swift's most blistering screeds, including his infamous essay advocating cannibalizing the poor as an antidote to overpopulation. As comic and enlightening now as they were when written 250 years ago, these rude, rollicking essays have an unexpected urgency as they take on issues of church and state that continue to pervade and disturb the culture.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary. ORG - - The author of these Travels, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, is my ancient and intimate friend; there is likewise some relation between us on the mother's side. About three years ago, Mr. Gulliver growing weary of the concourse of curious people coming to him at his house in Redriff, made a small purchase of land, with a convenient house, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, his native country; where he now lives retired, yet in good esteem among his neighbours. Although Mr. Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire, where his father dwelt, yet I have heard him say his family came from Oxfordshire; to confirm which, I have observed in the churchyard at Banbury in that county, several tombs and monuments of the Gullivers.