Gulliver's Travels

This new edition of Gulliver's Travels includes annotations, context, and critical assessments, enhancing the reader's understanding of Swift's satirical masterpiece.

As featured on PBS’s The Great American Read, this new edition of Swift's satirical classic, Gulliver's Travels, is based on the 1726 text, which is now considered the most authoritative by textual scholars. The edition is enriched with detailed explanatory annotations that help readers better understand the nuances and context of the work.

The section titled Contexts gathers a variety of materials that influenced Swift's writing of Gulliver's Travels, along with documents that illustrate its initial reception. This includes Swift's correspondence and poems by Alexander Pope related to the novel, as well as significant excerpts from Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel, providing a comprehensive backdrop for the text.

In the Criticism segment, readers will find fourteen assessments of Gulliver's Travels from notable figures such as the Earl of Orrery, Sir Walter Scott, and contemporary scholars like Laura Brown and Irvin Ehrenpreis. This collection of critiques offers diverse perspectives on the novel's themes and impact. Additionally, the volume includes a Chronology and a Selected Bibliography, making it a valuable resource for both casual readers and serious scholars alike.