Book Bearings
Gulliver's Travels
- 278 pages · about 5 hours
- First published 1726
- 1,810 editions
- Free to read
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1 About this book
Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon, tells of four voyages to lands unknown to Europe. Shipwrecked in Lilliput, he is a giant among very small people, and is drawn into their petty politics and wars. In Brobdingnag he is the tiny one, a curiosity kept by giants. His third voyage takes him to the flying island of Laputa, whose learned inhabitants are lost in abstract speculation, and to neighboring lands. On the fourth he lives among the Houyhnhnms, a race of rational horses. Jonathan Swift's satire of human nature, and of the travelers' tales popular in his day, was published in 1726.
- Fantasy
- Humor
- Adventure
- Voyages
- Satire
- Politics
- Imaginary Voyages
- Voyages and travels
2 What to expect
A satire in the form of a travel book: a ship's surgeon describes four voyages to imaginary countries of tiny people, giants, absent-minded scholars and rational horses. The first two parts are playful and are often adapted for children; the last two are darker, and the book grows steadily more bitter about human pride, politics and cruelty. The eighteenth-century prose is plain, with coarse bodily humor, and many topical references need notes.
Good for readers who want: classic satire, imaginary voyages, and humor that turns dark.
3 Read it free, right here
A free scan from the Internet Archive opens right here on the page, with no sign-up.
Read it on the Internet Archive4 About Jonathan Swift
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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