Gulliver's Travels

First published in 1726, this classic work of satire presents a world gone haywire, where humans, despite their pomposity and grandiose illusions, are no better than weak and helpless fools. Lemuel Gulliver's journeys take him to Lilliput, a country whose inhabitants are no more than six inches tall; to Brobdingnag, a land of giants; to Laputa, a flying island inhabited by absent-minded people; and to the land of Houyhnhnms, where horselike creatures rule with intelligence and courtesy over repulsive humanlike Yahoos. One of literature's lasting legacies, Swift's trenchant cautionary tale is a witty, allegorical depiction of people at their worst; yet it may also be read as an enchanting, playful children's story with universal appeal.

　　Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself in Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose six-inch height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the abstracted scientists of Laputa, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour.

Although Gulliver's journeys take us to strange and wonderful places, it is impossible to ignore the reflections of ourselves with which Swift peoples his realms, where humankind is seen in a satirical hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species. With its wild distortions, optical illusions and undertones of madness and the grotesque, Gulliver's Travels defies our expectations of a conventional traveller's tale. It is in fact a brillantly and rudelly subversive book.

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