Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift

Download Book
(Respecting the intellectual property of others is utmost important to us, we make every effort to make sure we only link to legitimate sites, such as those sites owned by authors and publishers. If you have any questions about these links, please contact us.)

link 1
link 2
link 3
link 4
link 5

About Book

From School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up-Jonathan Swift's satirical novel was first published in 1726, yet it is still valid today. Gulliver's Travels describes the four fantastic voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a kindly ship's surgeon. Swift portrays him as an observer, a reporter, and a victim of circumstance. His travels take him to Lilliput where he is a giant observing tiny people. In Brobdingnag, the tables are reversed and he is the tiny person in a land of giants where he is exhibited as a curiosity at markets and fairs. The flying island of Laputa is the scene of his next voyage. The people plan and plot as their country lies in ruins. It is a world of illusion and distorted values. The fourth and final voyage takes him to the home of the Houyhnhnms, gentle horses who rule the land. He also encounters Yahoos, filthy bestial creatures who resemble humans. The story is read by British actor Martin Shaw with impeccable diction and clarity and great inflection. If broken into short listening segments, the tapes are an excellent tool for presenting an abridged version of Gulliver's Travels.-Jean Deck, Lambuth University, Jackson, TN

From AudioFile
Naxos follows its usual practice of punctuating the narrative with carefully chosen classical music segments appropriate to the mood of the particular part of the story. Neville Jason reads this classic satire, supposedly a travelogue to remote islands with bizarre inhabitants, with an intense British voice that is crisp and effective. This is a heavy abridgment of the original, with some choppiness in continuity. Everyone will recognize the Lilliputians and the giants of Brogdingnag; the airborne islanders and intelligent horses are less familiar. Abridger Daniel Eilon retains the story's essential core, and Jason captures the tone well. D.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Midwest Book Review
Adults as well as teens will appreciate the abridged story of Gulliver on tape: a reading strengthened by Robert Hardy's excellent rendition. This engaging satire comes forth even stronger in audio format, reinforcing the classic Gulliver tale.

Book Description
This new edition of Swift's satiric classic is based on the 1726 text—the edition textual scholars now consider the most authoritative. It is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations.

"Contexts" collects materials that influenced Swift's writing of the novel, as well as documents that suggest its initial reception, including Swift's correspondence, Alexander Pope's poems on Gulliver's Travels, and relevant passages from Gargantua and Pantagruel.

"Criticism" includes fourteen assessments of Gulliver's Travels by the Earl of Orrery, Sir Walter Scott, Pat Rogers, Michael McKen, J.A. Downie, J. Paul Hunter, Laura Brown, Douglas Lane Patey, Dennis Todd, Richard H. Rodino. Irvin Ehrenpreis, Janine Barchas, Claude Rawson, and Howard D. Weinbrot.

A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.

About the series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

Download Description
One of the unique books of world literature, Swift's masterful satire describes the astonishing voyages of one Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon, to surreal kingdoms inhabited by miniature people and giants, quack philosophers and scientists, horses endowed with reason and men who behave like beasts. Written with great wit and invention, Gulliver's Travels is a savage parody on man and his institutions that has captivated readers for nearly three centuries.

The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
Four-part satirical novel by Jonathan Swift, published anonymously in 1726 as Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World. The novel is ostensibly the story of Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon and sea captain who visits remote regions of the world. In the beginning Gulliver is shipwrecked on Lilliput, where people are six inches tall. The Lilliputians' utterly serious wars, civil strife, and vanities are human follies so reduced in scale as to be rendered ridiculous. His second voyage takes him to Brobdingnag, where lives a race of giants of great practicality who do not understand abstractions. Gulliver's third voyage takes him to the flying island of Laputa and the nearby continent and capital of Lagado. There he finds pedants obsessed with their own specialized areas of speculation and utterly ignorant of the rest of life. At Glubdubdrib, the Island of Sorcerers, he speaks with great men of the past and learns from them the lies of history. He also meets the Struldbrugs, who are immortal and, as a result, utterly miserable. In the extremely bitter fourth part, Gulliver visits the land of the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent, virtuous horses served by brutal, filthy, and degenerate creatures called Yahoos.

Card catalog description
The voyages of a seaman carry him to Lilliput, where people are six inches tall, and Brobdingnag, a land of giants.

From the Publisher
8 1.5-hour cassettes

Inside Flap Copy
Introduction by Pat Rogers

About the Author
Albert J. Rivero is Professor of English at Marquette University. He is the author of The Plays of Henry Fielding: A Critical Study of His Dramatic Career, and editor of New Essays on Samuel Richardson, Augustan Subjects: Essays in Honor of Martin C. Battestin and Critical Essays of Henry Fielding.

Comments

SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the article, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.