Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gulliver’s Travels | - | Jonathan Swift | Buy |
Gulliver’s Travels is Jonathan Swift’s masterpiece, a satirical novel published in 1726. The book follows Lemuel Gulliver through four voyages to imaginary lands, each designed to expose different human failings, from petty politics in Lilliput to the inadequacy of pure reason in the land of the Houyhnhnms.
The first two voyages, to Lilliput and Brobdingnag, are the most famous. Lilliput’s tiny inhabitants squabble over which end of an egg to crack, a send-up of religious and political disputes. In Brobdingnag, Gulliver is the small one, and the giant king’s horrified reaction to European warfare exposes the brutality that Gulliver takes for granted. The later voyages to Laputa and the Houyhnhnms grow darker and more philosophical.
The novel has never gone out of print. Children’s versions often focus on the Lilliput section, but the full text is a sharp and sometimes bleak piece of satire. Swift wrote it while serving as Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, and the book brought him enormous fame across Europe during his lifetime.