GULLIVER'S TRAVELS BY JONATHAN SWIFT

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift (1667 –1745) was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, first for the Whigs, then for the Tories, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

Swift is remembered for works such as An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). 

He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms or anonymously. 

He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.

His deadpan, ironic writing style, particularly in A Modest Proposal, has led to such satire being subsequently termed Swiftian.

More information: Biography.com

Gulliver's Travels, whose full title is Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a prose satire.

It is uncertain exactly when Swift started writing Gulliver's it is known from Swift's correspondence that the composition proper began in 1720 with the mirror-themed Parts I and II written first, Part IV next in 1723 and Part III written in 1724; but amendments were made even while Swift was writing Drapier's Letters. 

Travels into Several Remote Nations of The World

By August 1725 the book was complete; and as Gulliver's Travels was a transparently anti-Whig satire, it is likely that Swift had the manuscript copied so that his handwriting could not be used as evidence if a prosecution should arise, as had happened in the case of some of his Irish pamphlets, the Drapier's Letters.

The first edition was released in two volumes on 28 October 1726, priced at 8s. 6d.

 
A possible reason for the book's classic status is that it can be seen as many things to many different people. Broadly, the book has three themes: A satirical view of the state of European government, and of petty differences between religions; an inquiry into whether men are inherently corrupt or whether they become corrupted and a restatement of the older ancients versus moderns controversy previously addressed by Swift in The Battle of the Books.

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Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally 
discover everybody's face but their own. 

Jonathan Swift