Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift

Jan 1912 · Rand, McNally

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

This was a good book but, being so old, it's a story that we've all heard before in some way or another. It was great to read one of the stories that inspired hundreds of others. I don't personally like some of the counties and stories within the book or the main character's reactions to them, but it was still an interesting story and I'm glad to have had the opportunitiny to read it.

This book is witty and imaginative and made me laugh. It is a classic so it caught my attention, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The only problem I had with it is that I don't understand some of the references to things in British history, as I have not been taught much about British history. I knew some of the references, and delighted in them and the comical and witty way the author disguised them, but others were a bit hard to understand. The book is also a little slow at some parts, which makes it harder to read. However, as it is a classic, I would implore anyone to read it.

Another in a long list of classic novels that I promised myself I would read. Mostly enjoyable, but the rambling storylines concerning political bumblings, social missteps, class differences and the like grew tiresome. I know that at the time this was considered a satire but to me it felt like two stories crammed together. An enjoyable science fiction/fantasy story and a tediously long political manifesto.

About the author

Jonathan Swift, born in 1667, was an Irish writer and political pamphleteer best known for his wildly inventive socio-political satire about the English everyman Gulliver and his bizarre travels engaging with various citizens both human and non-human. Although Swift was an ordained Anglican priest, his talents as a writer were formidable. Religion became his target for the satire A Tale of the Tub, and he deftly attacked good taste with his scathing A Modest Proposal.