Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift’s most famous book, was published in 1727. It is one of the most accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung and profound of satires, one of the most imaginative of accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung, and one of the best models of style. ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ was given to the accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung anonymously; though a few of Swift’s friends were in the secret. It became accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung popular, and has never lost its interest for both accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung and old. It begins with Gulliver’s accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung of himself and his setting forth upon the travels. A violent storm off Van Diemen’s Land drives him, the one accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung, to Lilliput, where he is examined with curiosity by the tiny accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung. They call him the “man-mountain,” and make accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung for his conduct. With equal curiosity he learns their arts of accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung and warfare. His next voyage is to Brobdingnag, where he is a Lilliputian in accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung to the size of the gigantic inhabitants of this accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung land, in which he becomes a court toy. In Brobdingnag Swift looked accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung the other end of the telescope, wishing to show the grossness of accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung as he had shown their pettiness.
The next adventure is a accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung to Laputa, where the inhabitants are absorbed in intellectual and scientific pursuits, and their accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung is most eccentric; this is probably a satire upon pedantry. Gulliver next visits Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, and Japan, and accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung an account of the Struldbrugs, a famous tribe of men who have gained physical immortality accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung immortal youth, and find it an awful curse.
The last voyage takes the traveler into the country of the Houyhnhnms, where the accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung under this name have an ideal government,—Swift’s Utopia,—and are immensely superior to the Yahoos, the embodiment of accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung mankind. The irony and satire may be accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung when one remembers that Swift said: “Upon the great foundation of misanthropy the whole building of my travels is erected”; and the remark that the King of Brobdingnag made to Gulliver—“The bulk of your natives accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung to me to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung of the earth”—may be accepted as the opinion of the cynic himself regarding mankind. Hazlitt said that in ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ Swift accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung a view of human nature such as might be taken by a being of accountanotherappearbestialbrilliantcivilizationcomparisonconductfacefolkgiveshorsesimmediatelymankindrulesstoriesstrangesurvivorthroughtookunderstoodvoyagewithoutworldyoung sphere.
(adapted from "The Reader’s Digest of Books" by Helen Rex Keller)