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Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World

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Title: Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World

Author: Jonathan Swift

 
Release date: February 1, 1997 [eBook #829]
 Most recently updated: April 6, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/829

Credits: David Price

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GULLIVER'S TRAVELS INTO SEVERAL REMOTE NATIONS OF THE WORLD ***

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS

into several

REMOTE NATIONS OF THE WORLD

BY JONATHAN SWIFT, D.D.,

dean of st. patrick's, dublin.

[_First published in_ 1726-7.]

cover 

Contents

 THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.
 A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN SYMPSON.
 PART I. A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT.
 PART II. A VOYAGE TO BROBDINGNAG.
 PART III. A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, GLUBBDUBDRIB, LUGGNAGG AND JAPAN.
 PART IV. A VOYAGE TO THE COUNTRY OF THE HOUYHNHNMS.

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.

[_As given in the original edition_.]

The author of these Travels, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, is my ancient and
intimate friend; there is likewise some relation between us on the
mother's side. About three years ago, Mr. Gulliver growing weary of the
concourse of curious people coming to him at his house in Redriff, made
a small purchase of land, with a convenient house, near Newark, in
Nottinghamshire, his native country; where he now lives retired, yet in
good esteem among his neighbours.

Although Mr. Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire, where his father
dwelt, yet I have heard him say his family came from Oxfordshire; to
confirm which, I have observed in the churchyard at Banbury in that
county, several tombs and monuments of the Gullivers.

Before he quitted Redriff, he left the custody of the following papers
in my hands, with the liberty to dispose of them as I should think fit.
I have carefully perused them three times. The style is very plain and
simple; and the only fault I find is, that the author, after the manner
of travellers, is a little too circumstantial. There is an air of truth
apparent through the whole; and indeed the author was so distinguished
for his veracity, that it became a sort of proverb among his neighbours
at Redriff, when any one affirmed a thing, to say, it was as true as if
Mr. Gulliver had spoken it.

By the advice of several worthy persons, to whom, with the author's
permission, I communicated these papers, I now venture to send them
into the world, hoping they may be, at least for some time, a better
entertainment to our young noblemen, than the common scribbles of
politics and party.

This volume would have been at least twice as large, if I had not made
bold to strike out innumerable passages relating to the winds and
tides, as well as to the variations and bearings in the several
voyages, together with the minute descriptions of the management of the
ship in storms, in the style of sailors; likewise the account of
longitudes and latitudes; wherein I have reason to apprehend, that Mr.
Gulliver may be a little dissatisfied. But I was resolved to fit the
work as much as possible to the general capacity of readers. However,
if my own ignorance in sea affairs shall have led me to commit some
mistakes, I alone am answerable for them. And if any traveller hath a
curiosity to see the whole work at large, as it came from the hands of
the author, I will be ready to gratify him.

As for any further particulars relating to the author, the reader will
receive satisfaction from the first pages of the book.

 RICHARD SYMPSON.

A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN SYMPSON.

Written in the Year 1727.

I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called
to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed on me to
publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with
directions to hire some young gentleman of either university to put
them in order, and correct the style, as my cousin Dampier did, by my
advice, in his book called "A Voyage round the world." But I do not
remember I gave you power to consent that any thing should be omitted,
and much less that any thing should be inserted; therefore, as to the
latter, I do here renounce every thing of that kind; particularly a
paragraph about her majesty Queen Anne, of most pious and glorious
memory; although I did reverence and esteem her more than any of human
species. But you, or your interpolator, ought to have considered, that
it was not my inclination, so was it not decent to praise any animal of
our composition before my master _Houyhnhnm_: And besides, the fact was
altogether false; for to my knowledge, being in England during some
part of her majesty's reign, she did govern by a chief minister; nay
even by two successively, the first whereof was the lord of Godolphin,
and the second the lord of Oxford; so that you have made me say the
thing that was not. Likewise in the account of the academy of
projectors, and several passages of my discourse to my master
_Houyhnhnm_, you have either omitted some material circumstances, or
minced or changed them in such a manner, that I do hardly know my own
work. When I formerly hinted to you something of this in a letter, you
were pleased to answer that you were afraid of giving offence; that
people in power were very watchful over the press, and apt not only to
interpret, but to punish every thing which looked like an _innuendo_
(as I think you call it). But, pray how could that which I spoke so
many years ago, and at about five thousand leagues distance, in another
reign, be applied to any of the _Yahoos_, who now are said to govern
the herd; especially at a time when I little thought, or feared, the
unhappiness of living under them? Have not I the most reason to
complain, when I see these very _Yahoos_ carried by _Houyhnhnms_ in a
vehicle, as if they were brutes, and those the rational creatures? And
indeed to avoid so monstrous and detestable a sight was one principal
motive of my retirement hither.

Thus much I thought proper to tell you in relation to yourself, and to
the trust I reposed in you.

I do, in the next place, complain of my own great want of judgment, in
being prevailed upon by the entreaties and false reasoning of you and
some others, very much against my own opinion, to suffer my travels to
be published. Pray bring to your mind how often I desired you to
consider, when you insisted on the motive of public good, that the
_Yahoos_ were a species of animals utterly incapable of amendment by
precept or example: and so it 

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