The Essential Writings of Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, to English parents, in 1667. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and Oxford, he was ordained in the Anglican Church in 1795 and later served for more than three decades as Dean of St. Patricks Cathedral in Dublin. In 1704, he published the religious-themed A Tale of a Tub, the first of the trenchantly satirical works on which his reputation rests. Along with his friends Alexander Pope and John Gay, Swift helped make the eighteenth century a golden age of social and political satire in Britain. After a brief stint as a Tory pamphleteer in London, the self-styled Irish patriot returned to Dublin in 1714. In later years, he vented what he called his savage indignation in a wide range of literary registers, from the Rabelaisian humor of his masterpiece, Gullivers Travels (1726), to the dystopian vision of infanticide in A Modest Proposal (1729). He died in 1745. Claude Rawson is Maynard Mack Professor of English at Yale University. He is the author of God, Gulliver, and Genocide: Barbarism and the European Imagination: 14921945, English Satire and the Satire Tradition, and Satire and Sentiment, 16601830: Stress Points in the English Augustan Tradition. He is General Editor of the Works of Jonathan Swift (Cambridge University Press) and co-editor, with Ian Higgins, of the Oxford World Classics edition of Gulliver's Travels. Ian Higgins is the author of Swift's Politics: A Study in Disaffection (1994) and Jonathan Swift (2004), and is an editor (with Claude Rawson) of Gulliver's Travels (2005). He is a Reader in English at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, where he teaches courses on early modern and eighteenth-century literature and on British imperial fiction.

Preface Introduction A Note on the Texts The Texts of The Essential Writings of Jonathan Swift EARLY SATIRES AND POLITICAL WRITINGS (1704-1711) A Tale of a Tub The Battle of the Books The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity The Examiner, no. 16. November 23, 1710 A Short Character of his Excellency Thomas Earl of Wharton II. PARODIES, HOAXES, SOTTISIERS (1703-1745) A Meditation Upon a Broom-Stick Predictions for the Year 1708 The Accomplishment of the First of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. The Last Speech and Dying Words of Ebenezor Eilliston from A Compleat Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation Directions to Servants III. WRITINGS ON IRELAND (1707-1737) The Story of the Injured Lady and The Answer to the Injured Lady Sermon, Causes of the Wretched Condition of Ireland A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately entered into Holy Orders A Letter to a Young Lady, On Her Marriage Drapier's Letters I Drapier's Letters IV A Short View of the State of Ireland A Modest Proposal A Proposal for Giving Badges to the Beggars IV. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS V. POEMS Verses Wrote in a Lady's Ivory Table-Book To Their Excellancies The Humble Petition of Frances Harris Baucis and Philemon A Description of the Morning A Description of a City Shower Cadenus and Vanessa The Author upon Himself Mary the Cook-Maid's Letter On Stella's Birth-Day Phyllis, or The Progress of Love The Progress of Beauty The Progress of Poetry To Stella, Visiting me in my Sickness To Stella, who collected and transcribed his Poems Stella's Birth-day To Stella on Her Birth-day A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a late Famous General The Progress of Marriage Stella's Birth-Day. A great Bottle of Wine, long buried, being that Day dug up Stella at Wood-Park To Stella Prometheus Stella's Birthday On Wood the Iron-monger A Receipt to Restore Stella's Youth Stella's Birth-day Clever Tom Clinch going to be hanged Holyhead. Sept. 25, 1727 Irel.d Directions for Making a Birth-day Song A Dialogue between an eminent Lawyer and Dr. Swift Dean of St. Patrick's Traulus The Lady's Dressing Room A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed Strephon and Chloe Cassinus and Peter, a Tragical Elegy To Mr Gay Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D. To a Lady On Poetry: A Rapsody The Yahoo's Overthrow The Legion Club Contexts CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTS, INCLUDING LETTERS, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, AND PERSONAL WRITINGS From Journal to Stella, Letter VI: Swift to Esther Johnson and Rebecca Dingley, October 10, 1710 From Journal to Stella, Letter XXXII: Swift to Esther Johnson and Rebecca Dingley, October 9, 1711 Swift to Alexander Pope, September 29, 1725 Swift to Alexander Pope, November 26, 1725 Swift to Charles Wogan, July-August 2, 1732 Swift to William Pulteney, Mary 12, 1775 Of Mean and Great Figures Family of Swift Death of Mrs. Johnson Thoughts on Various Subjects Some thoughts on Free-thinking Thoughts on Religion Further Thoughts on Religion From William Wotton, "Observations upon The Tale of the Tub" (1705) Alexander Pope, Poems on Gulliver's Travels Criticism 1745-1940 Henry Fielding [Obituary of Swift] Samuel Johnson [On A Tale of a Tub and Gulliver's Travels] Samuel Johnson [Life of Swift] Samuel Taylor Coleridge [on Gulliver's Travels] Samuel Taylor Coleridge [on Gulliver's Travels] William Makepeace Thackeray [on Gulliver's Travels and Swift's last days] D. H. Lawrence [on Swift's Celia] W. B. Yeats [on Swift, Georgian Ireland, and Stella] F. R. Leavis * "The Irony of Swift" Andr Breton [Swift and Black Humor] AFTER 1940 AND BY SUBJECT A TALE OF A TUB Hugh Kenner * [The Tale and t