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Gulliver's Travels by |
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Jonathan Swift
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| The author |
Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson
(November 13, 1850-December 3, 1894), was a novelist, poet, and travel
writer. Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of Thomas Stevenson, a successful engineer, and Margaret Balfour. They were both very religious. Robert gave up the religion of his parents while in his university years, but the teaching that he received as a child continued to influence him. Although ill with tuberculosis from childhood, Stevenson had a full life. He began his education as an engineer (and his lighthouse designs were much praised). At the age of 18 he dropped the name Balfour and changed his middle name from Lewis to Louis (but retaining the original pronunciation); from this time on he began styling himself "RLS". He turned to the law because of poor health, but he never practiced. He ended as a tribal leader (called by his tribe Tusitala) and plantation owner in Samoa, all this in addition to his literary career. Stevenson's novels of adventure, romance, and horror are of considerable psychological depth and have continued in popularity long after his death, both as books and as films. (From Wikipedia, The free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/)
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| The book |
Gulliver's Travels
(1726/1735) is a work of fiction pseudonymously authored by the British
satirist Jonathan Swift. The first edition was published in 1726 with major
changes by the publisher, since he was afraid the book in its original
version would offend a lot of people. In 1735 the complete version was
published. Posing as "Dr. Lemuel Gulliver", Swift purported to report his travels to a series of strange cultures. This mimicked a style of travel reporting that was common at the time, including the outright invention of outlandish and "savage" cultures deliberately designed to give Englishmen a critical point of view of their own society and habits. The travel fantasy Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, it is useful to recall, had been published only a few years previously, to universal acclaim. "Travels into Several Remote nations of the World by 'English sea-captain Lemuel Gulliver'", or Gulliver's Travels is sometimes perceived as a story for children. It is generally thought to be concerned with Lemuel Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput and Blefuscu, where the protagonist is surrounded by people 6 inches tall (15 cm). This, however, is a supreme irony since this overlooks the fact that this is one of the most coruscating satires on morals and behaviour ever written. It still stands as one of the great and timeless satires of all time, and one of the best primers ever written on political science, such as it exists. It anticipated many current debates in law (versus precedent), philosophy of mathematics, the seeking of human immortality, personhood and animal rights. (From Wikipedia, The free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/)
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| The book
online
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http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/829
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/s97g/
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