Gulliver's Travels

by Swift, Jonathan; Rawson, Claude; Higgins, Ian

• ISBN13: 9780192805348
• ISBN10: 0192805347
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-04-21
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

'Thus, gentle Reader, I have given thee a faithful History of my Travels for Sixteen Years, and above Seven Months; wherein I have not been so studious of Ornament as of Truth.'In these words Gulliver represents himself as a reliable reporter of the fantastic adventures he has just set down; but how far can we rely on a narrator whose identity is elusive and whoses inventiveness is self-evident? Gulliver's Travels purports to be a travel book, and describes Gulliver'sencounters with the inhabitants of four extraordinary places: Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the country of the Houyhnhnms. A consummately skilful blend of fantasy and realism makes Gulliver's Travels by turns hilarious, frightening, and profound. Swift plays tricks on us, and delivers one ofthe world's most disturbing satires of the human condition.This new edition includes the changing frontispiece portraits of Gulliver that appeared in successive early editions.

Author Biography

Claude Rawson edited Fielding's Jonathan Wild and is the author of God, Gulliver, and Genocide: Barbarism and the European Imagination 1492-1945. Ian Higgins is Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Australian National University, Canberra. Claude Rawson and Ian Higgins are General Editors of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift in 16 volumes.