In Jonathan Swift's most celebrated book, surgeon Lemuel Gulliver takes to the open seas and winds up shipwrecked on the island kingdom of Lilliput. Gulliver is a giant to the tiny Lilliputians. They take him prisoner, but he eventually gains their trust and escapes. Gulliver's adventure continues when he journeys to the lands of the giant Brobdingnags, meets the aloof academics of the floating empire Laputa, confronts the aristocratic horses the Houyhnhnms, and grapples with the idiotic Yahoos. Swift's tale is an insightful political fantasy puncturing pretension, and it has charmed and befuddled generations of readers both young and old.