Gulliver's Travels

by Jonathan Swift

Penguin Classics presents Jonathan Swift's inventive classic, Gulliver's Travels, adapted for audio and now available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by Hugh Laurie, star of the hit TV series House.

'Fifteen hundred of the Emperor's largest horses, each about four inches and an half high, were employed to draw me towards the Metropolis, which, as I said, was half a Mile distant'

A savage and hilarious satire, Gulliver's Travels sees Lemuel Gulliver shipwrecked and adrift, subject to bizarre and unnerving encounters with, among others, quarrelling Lilliputians, philosophising horses and the brutish Yahoo tribe, that change his view of humanity - and himself - for ever. Swift's classic of 1726 portrays mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with a comical yet uncompromising reflection of ourselves.

The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Part of a series of vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening.

Genres: Classics, Fiction

Hardcover

Published March 1, 2006

About the author

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift".
Swift is remembered for works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704), An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language. He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.
His deadpan, ironic writing style, particularly in A Modest Proposal, has led to such satire being subsequently termed "Swiftian".

Reviews

[John R · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read in 1975.

[Robert Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Johnathan Swift has a great imagination, and makes use of social satire in his conjurings of other people in other lands. With that said, I found the boom to be about 100 pages longer than needed, and seems to "jump the shark" a couple of times.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

L & I read this book to Andrew. It was full of crazy adventures in made up places.