2015 Reading: Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Gullivers TravelsGulliver’s travels by Jonathan Swift

The edition shown is a beautiful book with illustrations, historical notes, and a few critical essays. I picked it up at the local used bookstore not too long ago, and I’m happy to keep it in my library. But the edition I actually read was the Norton Critical Edition Revised, which I’ve had for probably 40 years. It’s binding is crumbling, there are numerous underlinings–both from this reading and past–and the book’s days are numbered.

Probably it has been a long time since you read Gulliver’s Travels, too. I read and taught “A Modest Proposal” by Swift in composition courses, but I’ve been wanting to refresh my recollection of Gulliver’s voyages for some time. Odd as it may sound, the book is relevant to the novel I’m working on now, so my reading was research.

It’s good to dip into classics now and then. Keeps us writers honest.

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