Gulliver's Travels
The Cambridge Anniversary Edition
Jonathan Swift author David Womersley editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:14th May '26
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
A new and richly annotated edition of one of the landmarks of world literature, based on the most authoritative scholarship.
Gulliver's Travels is one of the landmarks of world literature. Gulliver's adventures with the tiny Lilliputians, the giant inhabitants of Brobdingnag and the flying island of Laputa have become famous for their satirical wit and creativity. The Cambridge anniversary edition brings this classic work to life for general readers.Gulliver's Travels is one of the landmarks of world literature. Gulliver's adventures with the tiny but spirited Lilliputians, the giant inhabitants of Brobdingnag, the flying island of Laputa, and the rational horses of Houyhnmhnmland have become globally famous for their satirical wit and visionary creativity. Early editions credited Gulliver himself as the author, and many readers believed him to be a real person. Later commentators have variously described the work as proto-science fiction, as inspired children's literature and as a forerunner of the modern novel. The editor's introduction to this celebratory anniversary edition contextualises Gulliver's Travels in Swift's life and work as a whole while exploring its rich and remarkable afterlife. All the original illustrations and maps are included, as are the frontispiece portraits. Generous annotation explains textual details which might now seem obscure, and appendices contain additional documents and images to enhance contemporary understanding and enjoyment.
'The new Cambridge edition of Swift's masterpiece is a splendid venture. David Womersley's extensive introduction is both magisterial and enlightening, and the Appendices, which include the unpublished Lindalino episode, will be a joy for confirmed Swiftians and new readers alike. Chapeau!' John Banville
'Three hundred years after its first, sensational publication, Jonathan Swift's satire seems to speak to us more urgently than ever, despite the well-meaning interference of many former editors. This remarkable new edition takes the reader back to Swift's original intentions, bringing Gulliver's Travels brilliantly to life in context as the classic of the eighteenth century that still deserves the closest attention in our own time. This exemplary work of scholarship is a revelation that restores this landmark of world literature in all its savage and inextinguishable majesty.' Robert McCrum
'This meticulous edition weaves together an illuminatingly edited text, a magisterial introduction and appendices including a fascinating, unpublished episode of resistance to authoritarian oppression, to give a fresh presentation of Gulliver's Travels as at once dangerous, highly personal to Swift, and socially purposeful as a work of satire. This anniversary edition fully reveals the breadth of Swift's extraordinary artistic and moral ambition.' Karen O'Brien, Vice-Chancellor of Durham University
'The perfect guide to the enthralling, bewildering, hilarious experience of reading Swift's satirical masterpiece.' Tom Keymer, author of Jane Austen: A Very Short Introduction
ISBN: 9781009553179
Dimensions: 220mm x 151mm x 33mm
Weight: 628g
414 pages