Jonathan Swift

First edition, third issue of this classification-defying classic, combining elements of humor, utopia/dystopia and philosophy in order to satirize contemporary English laws and culture.

• Sold as a set of 2.
• Lemuel Gulliver [Jonathan Swift] (English).
• [Gulliver's Travels]: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
• London: Benj. Motte, 1726.
• viii, [4], 310; [6], 354 pages, collated complete.
• Volume 1 with engraved frontispiece portrait of Gulliver and two plates.
• Volume 2 has four engraved plates.
• Each with numerous typographic ornaments throughout.
• Bound in contemporary sprinkled brown calf bindings with gilt titles to red spine labels, raised bands, bound Cambridge style, with edges sprinkled red.
• Presented in custom brown cloth slipcase. 

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, best known as Gulliver's Travels, is one of the most influential works in English literature to use the distance of the Other to criticize the author’s own culture and society. It “spawned an entire subgenre of imitations,” and the title’s influence can still be seen in the SF writing of today (Barron, 407). The book was an immediate hit upon its publication: the University of Glasgow notes that “booksellers quickly sold out of the work necessitating several re-prints in the first few months.” This first edition, third issue of Gulliver's Travels is an attractive testament to the work’s popularity, published the same year as the elusive first issue, when its momentum was still building with readers across London.

Neil Barron, Anatomy of Wonder, item II-1114.

Herman Teerink, A Bibliography of the Writings of Jonathan Swift, item 291.

Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department Book of the Month, January 2006.