Reading Order
Gulliver's Travels Reading Order
Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift is one of the most complex and most disturbing satirical works in the English language — a book that presents itself as a travel narrative (in the tradition of Defoe and Dampier) and uses the conventions of that genre to launch the most sustained attack on human nature, political institutions, and intellectual self-satisfaction in European literature. The four books move from Lilliput (a miniature kingdom where the petty disputes of its inhabitants are a satire of English political life) to Brobdingnag (a kingdom of giants where the Brobdingnagian King's reaction to Gulliver's account of English civilization is one of contempt and horror) to Laputa (a flying island of philosophers who are so absorbed in their speculations that they have lost all contact with practical reality) to the land of the Houyhnhnms (where rational horses govern and the Yahoos — human beings — are the unreasonable, filthy, violent animals). The fourth book is the most extreme and the most debated: Gulliver's return to England at the end of Book Four, when he finds his own family disgusting and can only be comfortable among horses, is either Swift's endorsement of the Houyhnhnm view of human nature or his satire of the Gulliver who has been driven mad by his encounter with perfection. Critics have debated this question since 1726 without reaching agreement.
Where to start
Gulliver's Travels (1726) — the complete text (not the children's Lilliput abridgment). Best Swift reading order: Gulliver's Travels → A Modest Proposal → A Tale of a Tub → The Battle of the Books.
Complete Gulliver's Travels Book List
- 1Buy
Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift·1726·The complete text — all four books, including the Laputa and Houyhnhnm sections that are often omitted from children's versions. The Oxford World's Classics edition with Claude Rawson's introduction is excellent; the Penguin Classics edition with Michael Foot's introduction is also widely used - 2Buy
A Modest Proposal
Jonathan Swift·1729·The companion essay — the proposal to eat Irish babies as a solution to poverty. The companion as the most concentrated statement of the same satire: where Gulliver's Travels satirizes human nature and political institutions through the frame of a travel narrative, A Modest Proposal satirizes English exploitation of Ireland through the frame of an economic proposal - 3Buy
Candide
Voltaire·1759·Voltaire's companion philosophical tale — Candide's journey through a catastrophic world. The companion as the French Enlightenment version of the same satirical investigation: both are picaresque journeys organized around the satirical exposure of human delusion, political hypocrisy, and philosophical self-congratulation - 4Buy
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes·1605·Cervantes's companion investigation of the man whose imagination transforms the world he lives in. The companion as the predecessor: Don Quixote and Gulliver are companion figures as satirical travelers — both move through a world that exposes the gap between their perception and reality, though where Don Quixote's delusion is noble, Gulliver's disillusionment is total - 5Buy
Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe·1719·Defoe's companion — the original travel narrative that Swift satirizes. The companion as the predecessor and the target: Gulliver's Travels uses the conventions of travel narratives like Robinson Crusoe and Defoe's own works to satirize the same genre — Gulliver's confident, plain-prose narrator is a satirical version of Defoe's confident, plain-prose narrator - 6Buy
Utopia
Thomas More·1516·More's companion investigation of the ideal society. The companion as the predecessor: Gulliver's Travels uses the utopian tradition (the better society that exposes the deficiencies of the actual one) from More through Francis Bacon, but twists it: the Houyhnhnms' rational society is a utopia that indicts human nature rather than European political corruption - 7Buy
Rasselas
Samuel Johnson·1759·Johnson's companion philosophical tale — Rasselas's search for the happy life. The companion as the eighteenth-century philosophical tale in its most different mode: where Swift's satire is savage and disgusted, Johnson's is melancholy and resigned, but both are organized around the same disillusionment with the human ability to find happiness through worldly experience - 8Buy
The Praise of Folly
Desiderius Erasmus·1511·Erasmus's companion — Folly's praise of the foolishness that sustains human life. The companion as the Renaissance predecessor of the same humanist satire: where Swift's satire ends in disgust at human nature, Erasmus's ends in the paradox that it is Folly (self-deception, enthusiasm, sentiment) that makes human life possible
Gulliver's Travels — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Gulliver's Travels about?
Gulliver's Travels is a satirical travel narrative organized in four books. Book One: Gulliver is shipwrecked in Lilliput, a kingdom of tiny people, whose petty political disputes and violent factions are a satire of English politics. Book Two: Gulliver is stranded in Brobdingnag, a kingdom of giants, whose King's reaction to Gulliver's account of English civilization is one of contempt and horror. Book Three: Gulliver visits Laputa (a floating island of philosophers), Lagado (where the Academy of Projectors develops useless schemes), and other kingdoms — a satire of Enlightenment science and political theory. Book Four: Gulliver lives among the Houyhnhnms, rational horses who are governed by reason, and the Yahoos, human beings who are filthy, violent, and irrational. Gulliver returns to England at the end of Book Four finding his own family disgusting and spending his time with horses — either a satirical endpoint of human self-examination or Swift's endorsement of the Houyhnhnm view that human beings are essentially Yahoos.
Is Gulliver's Travels a children's book?
Gulliver's Travels is emphatically not a children's book in its complete form, though the Lilliput section (Book One) has been extensively adapted for children. The original text contains extensive satire of English political life that adults are the intended audience for; Book Three contains dense satirical attacks on Enlightenment science, economics, and political theory that require substantial background to appreciate; and Book Four (the Houyhnhnms) is one of the most extreme and disturbing visions of human nature in European literature — Swift's description of the Yahoos' sexuality, violence, and filth is deliberately repellent. The novel as a whole has been understood, since A.E. Housman's phrase, as the product of 'a maddened misanthropist' who hated the human race with a coherent and sustained passion. This is a somewhat oversimplified view of a complex irony, but it captures the darkness of the complete text that children's editions systematically omit.
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