A Modest Proposal

'... a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food...' 
 
Swift's devastating short satire on how to solve a famine 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Swift's works available in Penguin Classics are Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal and Other Writings.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Swift's works available in Penguin Classics are Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal and Other Writings.

Ladybird Classics: Gulliver's Travels

This beautiful hardback Ladybird Classic edition of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a perfect first illustrated introduction to the classic story for younger readers. 
It has been sensitively abridged and retold to make it suitable for sharing with young children from 5+, whilst retaining all the key parts of Gulliver's travels and adventures in the strange lands of Lilliput and Brobdingnag. Detailed full-colour illustrations throughout also help to bring this classic tale to life. 
 
 Other exciting titles in the Ladybird Classics series include Alice in Wonderland, Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, Oliver Twist and Treasure Island.

Jonathan Swift (Author) Anglo-Irish poet, satirist and clergyman, Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), was born in Dublin to English parents. He embarked on a career as diplomatic secretary and became increasingly involved in politics. He published many satirical works of verse and prose, including A Tale of a Tub, A Modest Proposal, and Gulliver's Travels.

This Ladybird Classic is an abridged retelling of the classic story of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, making it perfect for introducing the story to younger children, or for newly confident readers to tackle alone. 
 
Beautiful new illustrations throughout and a gorgeous larger format with ribbon marker bring the magic and adventure of this classic story to a new generation of children.

Gulliver's Travels

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Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) somehow managed to balance his role as Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin with being one of the most effective, disgusted and ferocious satirists in the English language. Gulliver's Travels is both a parody of what Swift viewed as the ridiculously contrived exotic travel genre pioneered by writers such as Captain William Dampier and an incomparably vivid and funny narrative that lies at the very heart of early English fiction.

The Penguin English Library Edition of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift 
 
'Fifteen hundred of the Emperor's largest horses, each about four inches and an half high, were employed to draw me towards the Metropolis, which, as I said, was half a Mile distant' 
 
A savage and hilarious satire, Gulliver's Travels sees Lemuel Gulliver shipwrecked and adrift, subject to bizarre and unnerving encounters with, among others, quarrelling Lilliputians, philosophizing horses and the brutish Yahoo tribe, that change his view of humanity - and himself - for ever. Swift's classic of 1726 portrays mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with a comical yet uncompromising reflection of ourselves. 
 
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[Coralie Bickford-Smith's] recent work for Penguin Classics is...nothing short of glorious

Anglo-Irish poet, satirist and clergyman, Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), was born in Dublin to English parents. He embarked on a career as diplomatic secretary and became increasingly involved in politics. He published many satirical works of verse and prose, including A Tale of a Tub, A Modest Proposal, and Gulliver's Travels.

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. 
 
Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour. Swift's savage satire views mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with an uncompromising reflection of ourselves.

A Modest Proposal and Other Writings

The Penguin Classics edition of Jonathan Swift's savagely satirical A Modest Proposal and Other Writings is edited with an introduction and notes by Carol Fabricant. 
 
To ease poverty in Ireland by eating the children of the poor was the satirical 'solution' suggested by Jonathan Swift in his essay 'A Modest Proposal' (1729). Here Swift unleashes the full power of his ironic armoury and corrosive wit, finding his targets - the British ruling class and avaricious landlords, and the brutalized Irish, complicit in their own oppression - with deadly precision. His masterly essay is accompanied by a generous selection of prose works, among them pamphlets attacking British rule in his native Ireland, periodical essays critiquing the new capitalist and military classes, a journal detailing his political activities in London, a loving tribute to his beloved 'Stella' after her death and pieces on such diverse subjects as the absurdities of astrology, the joys of punning and comical rules for servants. Ingenious and unconventional, Swift is revealed here as one of the greatest satirists in the English language. 
 
In her introduction to this new edition, Carol Fabricant discusses Swift's life and turbulent times, his political views and his powers as a writer of complex irony and intricate word play. This volume also includes a chronology, further reading, a glossary, notes and a biographical dictionary. 
 
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was born in Dublin. Sent to Kilkenny Grammar School when he was six, Swift later attended Trinity College, Dublin, where he received his BA degree in 1686. He is considered the foremost prose satirist in the English language, which stemmed from his criticism of Britain's repressive colonial policies in Ireland. Among Swift's best known works are his ironic masterpiece, 'A Modest Proposal' (1729), and his novel, Gulliver's Travels (1726). 
 
If you enjoyed A Modest Proposal, you might like Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings, also available in Penguin Classics.

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin on 30 November 1667, some months after his father's death. He was sent to Kilkenny Grammar School when he was six and later attended Trinity College, Dublin, where he received his BA degree in 1686. He is considered the foremost prose satirist in the English language, which stemmed from his criticism of Britain's repressive colonial policies in Ireland. Among Swift's best known works is his ironic masterpiece, 'A Modest Proposal' (1729), and his novel, Gulliver's Travels (1726). Swift died on 19 October 1745. 
 
Carole Fabricant is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. She is the author of Swift's Landscape and has published widely on a number of eighteenth-century writers, including Alexander Pope, Edmund Burke and Bishop Berkeley, as well as on topics such as landscape gardening, travel, tourism and questions of colonialism and race in the eighteenth-centruy, especially as they relate to British-Irish relations during the period.

The political dilemma of Ireland; the state of faith in England; the charms of the Beggar's Opera; the importance of puns . . . This selection gathers together some of Swift's most brilliant prose, from high politics to social gossip, from savage tirades to lighthearted social satire. In addition to his classic essays, the collection includes several of Swift's letters to Alexander Pope and other great thinkers of the age.

and Alexander Pope's Verses on Gulliver's Travels

'Among the six indispensable books in world literature' George Orwell

Swift's world-famous satire was an instant bestseller...his vision is dark, often verging on the obscene

It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery

It has entered the iconography of western culture as perhaps no other single novel, giving words to the English language and inspiring remarkably diverse acts of homage... A political comedy, an existentialist meditation, a bleak thriller about an outsider caught between worlds...at the heart of Swift's masterwork is an ennobling sadness, a lament for a world gone mad

Among the six indispensable books in world literature

Everyone standing for political office . . . should have a compulsory examination in Gulliver's Travels

'Among the six indispensable books in world literature' George Orwell 
 
 In the course of his famous travels, Gulliver is captured by miniature people who wage war on each other because of religious disagreement over how to crack eggs, is sexually assaulted by giants, visits a floating island, and decides that the society of horses is better than that of his fellow man. Swift's tough, filthy and incisive satire has much to say about the state of the world today and is presented here in its unexpurgated entirety.

A Tale of a Tub

You've had The Big Read, now here comes The Big Think.

Anglo-Irish poet, satirist and clergyman, Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), was born in Dublin to English parents. He published many satirical works of verse and prose, including 'A Tale of a Tub', 'A Modest Proposal', and 'Gulliver's Travels'. 
 
 
Robert DeMaria, Jr. is Henry Noble MacCracken Professor of English at Vassar College, New York. He has published widely on 17th and 18th century literature.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

Jonathan Swift

Rediscover the Puffin Classics collection and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation - including this thrilling edition of Gulliver's Travels. 
 
In the strange countries of Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and the land of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver meets some extraordinary people and remarkable creatures. From a race of miniature folk to some surprisingly gentle giants and wise horses, Gulliver sees society from many different perspectives. Back in England life seems very ordinary after all his experiences, but Gulliver's fantastic adventures change his views on human behaviour forever.

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