Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift was born in 1667 in Dublin. He was educated at Kilkenny Grammar School and then Trinity College Dublin. After leaving university he worked as secretary to Sir William Temple and became involved in political life. Swift was unhappy with the direction his career was taking and he became a minister of the Church in 1694. He continued to take part in political debate through his writing. [...]

My name is Lemuel Gulliver. I was born in England, in 16--. When I was a young man I studied to be a doctor. I worked in London at first, but it was not easy to make money there. I decided to work as a ship’s doctor. I liked travelling and I made several voyages. It was an interesting life. One ship I worked on was called the Antelope. Our voyage went very well at first, but one day there was a great storm. [...]

Life in Lilliput

The War of the Eggs

One day I will write a big book about the kingdom of Lilliput. I will describe how the people live and their habits. I will not describe it all here, but I do want to say something about this interesting country. It is important to remember that the people of Lilliput are very small. They are about six inches tall, and all the animals and trees are in proportion. The tallest horse is about five inches high and a sheep about one inch. [...]

A Voyage to Brobdingnag

My Career as a Performer

We performed our special show for the Queen and the Queen loved it. She smiled when I bowed to her and she pretended to be frightened when I took out my sword. She clapped very loudly when we finished. ‘What a wonderful little man!’ she said to the farmer. ‘I want to keep him. Will you sell him to me?’ ‘Yes, I’ll sell him to you, Your Majesty,’ the farmer told her. I was sad, because I liked Glumdalclitch. Then I had a good idea. [...]

A Voyage to Laputa and Balnibarbi

I now decided to leave Lagado and to go home to England. My plan was to go to the port of Maldonada and to take a ship there for the island of Luggnagg. From Luggnagg I planned to travel to Japan. I knew that many ships went from Japan to Europe. When I arrived at Maldonada, I learnt that the next ship for Luggnagg was expected in a month. I spent a few days in the port of Maldonada and the local people were very kind to me. [...]

I was very happy to reach home safely and I decided to stay in England for a long time. Then someone offered me a ship of my own, the Adventure and I left England once again. Many of the crew of the Adventure became ill on the journey and some of them died. Soon there were not enough sailors to drive the ship. I decided to stop in Barbados to find more sailors. [...]

In the original version of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift printed maps to show where the imaginary islands of Lilliput and Blefuscu were. He did this to make his book seem more realistic. At the top of the map however we can see the island of Sumatra clearly marked.

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