Gulliver’s Travels

CHAPTER 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

PART FOUR A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 1 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 2 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 3 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

CLASSIC LITERATURE: WORDS AND PHRASES adapted from the Collins English Dictionary (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

History of Collins (#ulink_7a422296-88ca-5a9b-989c-2f915e6c923d)

In 1819, Millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.

Soon after, William published the first Collins novel, Ready Reckoner, however it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.

Aged 30, William’s son, William II took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.

In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.

HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.

Life & Times (#ulink_26c1b599-a86e-58d8-bb5c-b4bcbe6cac95)

About the Author

To become a writer of novels at the turn of the 18th century one needed to be in a position of relative privilege. Life was generally hard going and most people worked themselves to the bone to feed their families. Any spare time outside of making a living was spent resting or in prayer.

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) was lucky enough to have been born into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family. He earned his degree at university in Dublin and then moved to England for several years. Whilst in England, Swift secured a job as secretary to an important statesman and was so successful in his role that he conducted affairs with King William III following the Glorious Revolution – the usurping of King James II, the last Catholic monarch. Swift travelled back and forth between Ireland and England over the next few years. During this time he became politically active and used his writing ability for propaganda purposes. He quickly learnt the power of the written word and became interested in writing allegorical works of fiction.

By the time Swift began writing his most famous book, Gulliver’s Travels, he was already into his fifties and a well-rounded writer. He chose to use a pseudonym because the story of Gulliver was rich with hidden political comment and he was associated with the Tories who had recently fallen into disrepute on charges of treason.

Despite it being essentially a children’s book by today’s standards, Gulliver’s Travels was an immediate success, not least because nothing similar had been written before. The book had an appeal because it worked on many different levels – children could take the story at face value, whilst an adult might understand the allegory and allusion behind the imagery.

Gulliver’s Travels has now become one of the seminal works of English literature. Like the contemporaneous Robinson Crusoe, Swift understood that the foremost role of literature was to entertain. People wanted to immerse themselves in a story and imagine themselves in far-flung, exotic locations. The early novel acted as a portal into another realm, where people could forget about their woes and immerse themselves into a fantasy world of make believe. Considering that Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels are 300 years old it says a great deal about their fundamental power of engagement that people still revere these books as classic novels. The vocabulary, grammar and phrasing could feel rather dated to a modern-day audience, however the plot and subtext remain as pertinent today as they have always been.

Swift lived until 77 years of age and in his final years became obsessed with death, because he saw so many friends pass away while he lived on. He eventually suffered a stroke and spent three years unable to speak. In his writing he compared his condition to an old tree dying from the canopy downwards.

Gulliver’s Travels

An interesting thing to note about Gulliver’s Travels is that this title is not the original. The book was first titled Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. The author, Jonathan Swift used the pseudonym Lemuel Gulliver, so the title of the novel became abbreviated to Gulliver’s Travels, because that was the phrase used by people in describing the book.

This was a very early novel as it was published in 1726. In fact it is arguably one of the first modern English novels. The term ‘novel’ had only been used since the 1680s and Robinson Crusoe had been published only seven years prior to Gulliver’s Travels. While Robinson Crusoe is essentially a work of realism, Gulliver’s Travels is one of fantasy. That is to say, the former is based on true events and could therefore conceivably happen, while the latter includes fanciful ideas that might be the product of mind alteration, vivid dreams or an extremely fertile imagination. The first two parts of the book find Gulliver in a land of miniature people and then a land of giants. He then visits a land where he speaks with ghosts in the company of an immortal old man, before discovering a place where anthropomorphic horses rule over primitive humans.

Swift’s work of wild experimentation proved him something of a polymath and anthropologist. He was primarily interested in the nature of the human condition, so he used his fantastical imaginings as a way of satirising and revealing the underlying failings of humanity. For an individual living in the early 18th century it was a unique mind that could claim to have that degree of insight. Swift was an Irish Dean, living in Dublin. As a devout Christian he seems to have had something of a chip on his shoulder about scientists. He viewed their work as purely academic and of no practical use, and he pokes fun at science in the third part of the book where he meets a population who although very learned, lack common sense. At that time natural philosophers, as scientists were then known, had begun to unravel the workings of the world. For example, Isaac Newton had expounded his theory of gravity and the composition of white light. These ideas suggested that the world was explainable in a way that didn’t require a god, so such ungodly work was open to ridicule. There is a certain level of hypocrisy on the part of Swift however, as he experiments with concepts of scale and toys with other ideas that were in the public domain as a result of the scientific progress being made at the time.

In regards to the anthropomorphic horses that appear in Gulliver’s Travels, it would seem that he held the notion that due to their dignified silence and work ethic, horses were representative of the more sophisticated qualities desirable in people. At the time, polite society viewed godliness as being as far away from the inner animal as possible. With concepts of evolution still a long way off and an acceptance of primal beginnings, people had the idea that ideal behaviour should be very controlled, restricted and confined, as if the mind were detached from the body.

Swift evidently observed these vulgarities in other people and imagined that if horses could talk, they would portray those characteristics that he viewed as more desirable. Horses were an integral and intimate part of everyday life at the time Swift was writing, although to a modern-day reader it seems a tad esoteric and eccentric to place horses on a pedestal in such a way.

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PART ONE A Voyage to Lilliput (#ulink_3856e36e-4b75-59de-bb9a-7b408787ece4)

CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_c893d2e3-dd22-55ab-afd1-1f1103f1d9ca)

The author gives some account of himself and family; his first inducements to travel. He is shipwrecked, and swims for his life; gets safe ashore in the country of Lilliput; is made a prisoner, and carried up the country.

My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the third of five sons. He sent me to Emanuel College in Cambridge, at fourteen years old, where I resided three years, and applied myself close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty allowance, being too great for a narrow fortune, I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London, with whom I continued four years; and my father now and then sending me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning navigation, and other parts of the mathematics, useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be some time or other my fortune to do. When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my father; where, by the assistance of him and my Uncle John, and some other relations, I got forty pounds, and a promise of thirty pounds a year to maintain me at Leyden: there I studied physic two years and seven months, knowing it would be useful in long voyages.

Soon after my return from Leyden, I was recommended by my good master, Mr. Bates, to be surgeon to the Swallow, Captain Abraham Pannell, commander; with whom I continued three years and a half, making a voyage or two into the Levant, and some other parts. When I came back, I resolved to settle in London, to which Mr. Bates, my master, encouraged me, and by him I was recommended to several patients. I took part of a small house in the Old Jewry; and being advised to alter my condition, I married Mrs. Mary Burton, second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton, hosier, in Newgate Street, with whom I received four hundred pounds for a portion.

But, my good master, Bates, dying in two years after, and I having few friends, my business began to fail; for my conscience would not suffer me to imitate the bad practice of too many among my brethren. Having therefore consulted with my wife, and some of my acquaintance, I determined to go again to sea. I was surgeon successively in two ships, and made several voyages for six years to the East and West Indies, by which I got some addition to my fortune. My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language, wherein I had a great facility by the strength of my memory.

The last of these voyages not proving very fortunate, I grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay at home with my wife and family. I removed from the Old Jewry to Fetter Lane, and from thence to Wapping, hoping to get business among the sailors; but it would not turn to account. After three years’ expectation that things would mend, I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain William Pritchard, master of the Antelope, who was making a voyage to the South Seas. We set sail from Bristol, May 4th, 1699, and our voyage at first was very prosperous.

It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the reader with the particulars of our adventures in those seas. Let it suffice to inform him that, in our passage from thence to the East Indies, we were driven by a violent storm to the northwest of Van Diemen’s Land. By an observation, we found ourselves in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes south. Twelve of our crew were dead by immoderate labour and ill food; the rest were in a very weak condition. On the fifth of November, which was the beginning of summer in those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied a rock, within half a cable’s length of the ship; but the wind was so strong, that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately split. Six of the crew, of whom I was one, having let down the boat into the sea, made a shift to get clear of the ship and the rock. We rowed, by my computation, about three leagues, till we were able to work no longer, being already spent with labour while we were in the ship. We therefore trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves, and in about half an hour the boat was overset by a sudden flurry from the north. What became of my companions in the boat, as well as of those who escaped on the rock, or were left in the vessel, I cannot tell; but conclude they were all lost. For my own part, I swam as fortune directed me, and was pushed forward by wind and tide. I often let my legs drop, and could feel no bottom: but when I was almost gone, and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my depth; and by this time the storm was much abated. The declivity was so small, that I walked near a mile before I got to the shore, which I conjectured was about eight o’clock in the evening.

I then advanced forward near half a mile, but could not discover any sign of houses or inhabitants; at least I was in so weak a condition that I did not observe them. I was extremely tired, and with that, and the heat of the weather, and about half a pint of brandy that I drank as I left the ship, I found myself much inclined to sleep. I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I slept sounder than ever I remembered to have done in my life, and, as I reckoned, about nine hours; for when I awaked it was just daylight. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look upwards, the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me, but, in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which, advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when, bending my eyes downward as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high, with a bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. In the meantime, I felt at least forty more of the same kind (as I conjectured) following the first. I was in the utmost astonishment, and roared so loud that they all ran back in a fright; and some of them, as I was afterwards told, were hurt with the falls they got by leaping from my sides upon the ground. However, they soon returned, and one of them, who ventured so far as to get a full sight of my face, lifting up his hands and eyes by way of admiration, cried out in a shrill but distinct voice, Hekinah degul: the others repeated the same words several times, but I then knew not what they meant.

I lay all this while, as the reader may believe, in great uneasiness; at length, struggling to get loose, I had the fortune to break the strings, and wrench out the pegs that fastened my left arm to the ground; for, by lifting it up to my face, I discovered the methods they had taken to bind me, and, at the same time, with a violent pull, which gave me excessive pain, I a little loosened the strings that tied down my hair on the left side, so that I was just able to turn my head about two inches. But the creatures ran off a second time, before I could seize them; whereupon there was a great shout in a very shrill accent, and after it ceased, I heard one of them cry aloud, Tolgo phonac; when in an instant I felt above a hundred arrows discharged on my left hand, which pricked me like so many needles; and, besides, they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe, whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body (though I felt them not), and some on my face, which I immediately covered with my left hand.

When this shower of arrows was over, I fell a-groaning with grief and pain, and then striving again to get loose, they discharged another volley larger than the first, and some of them attempted with spears to stick me in the sides; but, by good luck, I had on me a buff jerkin, which they could not pierce.

I thought it the most prudent method to lie still, and my design was to continue so till night, when my left hand being already loose, I could easily free myself: and as for the inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be a match for the greatest army they could bring against me, if they were all of the same size with him that I saw. But fortune disposed otherwise of me.

When the people observed I was quiet, they discharged no more arrows: but, by the noise I heard, I knew their numbers increased; and about four yards from me, over against my right ear, I heard a knocking for above an hour, like that of people at work; when turning my head that way, as well as the pegs and strings would permit me, I saw a stage erected, about a foot and a half from the ground, capable of holding four of the inhabitants, with two or three ladders to mount it: from whence one of them, who seemed to be a person of quality, made me a long speech, whereof I understood not one syllable.