The Cambridge Companion to Gulliver's Travels

The definitive guide to Swift's controversial satirical masterpiece, Gulliver's Travels, demonstrating its complexity and enduring legacy.

Daniel Cook (Edited by), Nicholas Seager (Edited by)

9781108830195, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 October 2023

280 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.55 kg

Jonathan Swift's satirical masterpiece, Gulliver's Travels, has shocked and delighted readers worldwide since its publication in 1726. At turns a humorous and harrowing indictment of human behaviour, it has been endlessly reinterpreted by critics and adapted across media by other artists. The Cambridge Companion to Gulliver's Travels comprises 17 original chapters by leading scholars, written in a theoretically-informed but accessible style. As well as providing detailed close readings of each part of the narrative, this Companion relates Gulliver's Travels to the political, religious, scientific, colonial, and intellectual debates in which Swift was engaged, and it assesses the form of the book as a novel, travel book, philosophical treatise, and satire. Finally, it explores the Travels' rich and varied afterlives: the controversies it has fuelled, the films and artworks it has inspired, and the enduring need authors have felt to 'write back' to Swift's original, disturbing, and challenging story.

Part I. Contexts: 1. Politics Joseph Hone
2. Religion Ian Higgins
3. Bodies and Gender Liz Bellamy
4. Science, Empire, and Observation Gregory Lynall
Part II. Genres: 5. Popular Fiction J. A. Downie
6. Satire Pat Rogers
7. Travel Writing Dirk F. Passmann
8. Philosophical Tale Paddy Bullard
Part III. Reading Gulliver's Travels: 9. Advertisements and Authorship Brean Hammond
10. A Voyage to Lilliput Melinda Alliker Rabb
11. A Voyage to Brobdingnag Nicholas Seager
12. A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, &c. Barbara M. Benedict
13. A Voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms Judith Hawley
Part IV. Afterlives: 14. Critical Reception Jack Lynch
15. Further Voyages Daniel Cook
16. Visual Culture Ruth Menzies
17. Screen Media Emrys Jones.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]