Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels, originally titled 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 1726 satirical prose novel by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift. It is one of the most famous classics of both English and world literature, and popularised the fictional island of Lilliput. The poet John Gay remarked of the work, "It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery." The novel satirises human nature and the imaginary "travellers' tales" literary subgenre, and it has been adapted for theatrical performances, films, television, and radio over the centuries.

The story is about Lemuel Gulliver, an adventurous Englishman who travels to a series of strange and distant lands, each inhabited by unusual beings that reflect different aspects of human nature and society. In Lilliput, he encounters tiny people engaged in petty political disputes; in Brobdingnag, he is a small man among giants who criticise European customs; in Laputa, he meets impractical intellectuals disconnected from reality; and in the land of the Houyhnhnms, he finds rational horses living peacefully alongside savage human-like creatures called Yahoos. Through these journeys, the novel satirises the flaws of various civilisations.

It is uncertain when Swift began writing the novel, but it is considered to have been an attempt at satirising popular literary genres. By mid 1725, the book was finished and as the work was a political satire, it is very likely that Swift had the manuscript copied by another writer so that his writing could not be used as evidence if a legal case should arise.