Jonathan Swift ☆ 1 SUMMARY
This beautiful hardback Ladybird Classic edition of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a perfect first illustrated introduction to the classic story for younger readersIt has been sensitively abridged and retold to make it suitable for sharing with young children from 5 whilst retaining all the key parts of Gulliver's travels and adventures in the strange lands of Lilliput and Brobdingnag Detailed full colour illustrations throughout also help to bring this classic tale to life Other exciting titles in the Ladybird Classics series include Alice in Wonderland Black Beauty The Secret Garden Oliver Twist and Treasure IslandThis beautiful hardback Ladybird Classic edition of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a perfect first illustrated introduction to the classic story for younger readers.
It has been sensitively abridged and retold to make it suitable for sharing with young children from 5+, whilst retaining all the key parts of Gulliver's travels and adventures in the strange lands of Lilliput and Brobdingnag. Detailed full-colour illustrations throughout also help to bring this classic tale to life.
Other exciting titles in the Ladybird Classics series include Alice in Wonderland, Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, Oliver Twist and Treasure Island.This beautiful hardback Ladybird Classic edition of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a perfect first illustrated introduction to the classic story for younger readers.
It has been sensitively abridged and retold to make it suitable for sharing with young children from 5+, whilst retaining all the key parts of Gulliver's travels and adventures in the strange lands of Lilliput and Brobdingnag. Detailed full-colour illustrations throughout also help to bring this classic tale to life.
Other exciting titles in the Ladybird Classics series include Alice in Wonderland, Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, Oliver Twist and Treasure Island. Ladybird Classics: Gullivers Travels
This book might today be remembered for the innumerable parodies of its early scene of Gulliver waking up tied down on the beach by the tiny inhabitants of an unknown island than it is for having actually been read But this is a true classic filled with witty humor and sharp satire on most aspects of then current European life religion and politics Which in all honesty haven’t changed much in the almost 300 years since the book was writtenThe one thing that keeps it from a full five star score is that at times mainly in the second of the four journeys it does feel a bit repetitive The first and second journey having much in common with each other Ladybird Classics: Gullivers Travels Reader be warned despite being adapted into various kids' books and movies over time Gulliver's Travels is NOT a children's book The concept may sound like a children's fairy tale but Jonathan Swift intended this book to be a parody of the travel books of his time as well as a scathing satire of British culture and government of the day And to be honest despite the imaginative concepts behind it it's a very tedious book to plow through It's worth a read at least once to get the gist of the story and appreciate what Swift was trying to do but overall it was a chore to readGulliver's Travels follows Lemuel Gulliver a ship's surgeon who has a passion for traveling the world Through shipwrecks pirate attacks and other various misadventures he finds himself in various strange locations all over the world an island populated by tiny people who see him as a giant a land of giants who see him as a tiny person himself a floating island of self professed geniuses whose philosophies and inventions are nothing short of insane a race of immortals who prove that immortality isn't all its cracked up to be and a race of intelligent horses who view humans as abominable beasts And along the way Gulliver has a chance to proclaim the might and supposed superiority of the British Empire only for his claims to be laughed at and proven wrong along the wayFor those only familiar with Gulliver's Travels via children's adaptations or sigh the Jack Black film this book will probably be something of a surprise Most adaptations only show Gulliver's adventures in Lilliputa though some will also depict his journey to the land of giants as well and skip the last half of the book entirely Your mileage may vary on whether this is a bad thing or not it does cut out some of Gulliver's fantastic journeys but also trims out some of the political satire and outlandish misadventures Still the land of intelligent horses was interesting and it's a shame it doesn't get attention in adaptationsThe writing itself comes across as stilted and stuffy compared to modern day writing with a lot of archaic and now obscure words and terms scattered throughout so unless you read a lot of classics you'll probably have a hard time getting through the writing style Beyond the writing style the book can get boring and tedious to read especially as Swift has no problems screeching the plot to a halt in order to have Gulliver monologue about his precious British Empire and his homeland's way of life and politics so that other characters might point out the flaws for themselves or otherwise skewer his pride in his homeland In its day it was probably a cutting edge satire meant to be a punch in the gut to its readers but nowadays it can be frustrating to readThat's not to say there's nothing of worth in this book It's still a curiosity to read and it's nice to get the full story of the book instead of a bloodless and heavily edited children's adaptation And it's interesting to compare it to its various adaptations Fun fact the scene in the Jack Black film adaptation of Gulliver's Travels where Gulliver puts out a fire by urinating on it It wasn't just added for the sake of bathroom humor it's an actual scene from the original bookWorth a look as a curiosity especially if you're only familiar with the story from a film or children's adaptation or if you're interested in 18th century literature and satire It's not a book I'm sure I'll reread however and I found myself bored by it and skimming chunks where the author monologues about the problems of British society of the day And parents should probably opt for an abridged adaptation for their kids something I don't always recommend but do so for this book Ladybird Classics: Gullivers Travels Note the free Kindle edition titled Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Regions of the World includes only the first two parts of the four sections that make up Swift's book In this review however I consider Gulliver's Travels in its entirety hence the five star ratingWhen I was a child growing up in Latin America my parents would buy me a magazine that included the classics of world literature in simplified versions There were at least two collections and they include such works as The Little Prince The Iliad The Jungle Book Romeo and Juliet Don uixote Robinson Crusoe Around the World in 80 Days and of course Gulliver's Travels Swift wrote an acid satire on politics reason science and humanity in general yet his book metamorphosed into children's literature Even this transformation attests to the greatness of Gulliver's Travels In order for a book to transform itself that way it has to be than a simple artifact; this book is a living organismWhile Robinson Crusoe 1719 can be described as a novel some call it the first English novel Gulliver's Travels 1726 falls into a different category The best way to describe Swift's book would be as a fake travel narrative Swift in other words was playing with genre conventions the way postmodernists would some 200 years later Gulliver's Travels can be filed with some alterations under Children's Literature because it is an adventure story and because of its unforgettable images This is what generally comes to mind when Gulliver's Travels is mentioned a race of minute beings a race of gigantic beings a flying island rational horses Yet this book features a good deal of scatological humor Gulliver extinguishes a fire by urinating on it In the flying island a group of scientists try to find a way to turn feces back into food There are also many instances of the grotesue especially the description of breastfeeding in the second voyageGulliver's Travels is divided into four parts each of which could be read independently The most famous and perhaps the most harmless is the first the voyage to Lilliput during which Gulliver meets a race of tiny people This first voyage satirizes politics in Swift's time For example Gulliver is criticized by the creative way in which he extinguished the fire and even though he had good intentions he achieved a good result through a foul method Gulliver is in this particular case Swift writing biting satires in order to inspire change in his society The second voyage takes our hero to Brobdingnag where people are huge It is all a matter of comparison now Gulliver is the Lilliputian Voltaire would write on the exact same theme under the direct influence of Swift his 1750 story Micromégas The third voyage was the last to be written and it is in my opinion the most imaginative A flying island sounds like a wonderful thing This island is called Laputa a name you're familiar with if you're a Miyazaki fan If you know Spanish you'll laugh and you're meant to In my children's edition of the book by the way the island's name was changed to Lupata for obvious reasons Laputa is a satire on the Royal Society which was dedicated to knowledge through science following the Cartesian belief that knowledge should be objective and the product of reason Laputa rules since it is in the sky it can fly over any potential rebellious region below and block the sun and rain The third voyage also includes visits to other lands such as Luggnagg where Gulliver meets a race of immortals and Glubbdubdrib where the traveler can talk with ghostsThe fourth and last section of the book reuires a separate paragraph This is the voyage to the land of the Houyhnhnms a word that appears impossible to pronounce until the reader is told that it is basically the neighing of a horse Houyhnhnms are just that horses but these animals are pure reason They show no emotions and they have subjected a grotesue nearly human race known as the Yahoos Swift coined this term incidentally Gulliver loves the Houyhnhnms and he cannot stand the fact that to them he is simply a sophisticated type of Yahoo This voyage is the one that has the deepest effect on Gulliver His return to England and the way it affects him after life among the Houyhnhnms is perhaps the most pathetic episode in the bookSwift has been labeled a misanthrope because of the view of humanity conveyed by Gulliver's Travels The reader must remember however that the narrator of this book is not Swift but Gulliver In fact Swift's works were published anonymously as if the author wore a different mask each time he wrote one of his satires Gulliver criticizes humanity but he is even worthy of criticism himself Regarding Swift he once wrote that he hated that animal called man but he loved individual human beings This is not such an uncommon attitude Other people feel the exact opposite Many of us have heard the saying I love humanity but people annoy the hell out of me In any case satire implies caring If one didn't care about humanity and its institutions one wouldn't bother to write about them Behind the acerbic criticism lies a concern for what the satirist is criticizing and a desire for improvement Gulliver's Travels is one of the highlights in the immortal tradition that goes back to Petronius' Satyricon and Apuleius' Metamorphoses and which includes such varied works as Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel and William S Burroughs' Naked LunchIf you are looking for a physical copy of the book I recommend the one that belongs to the Ignatius Critical Editions series The uality of the paper and the binding are excellent I decided to get this edition because it includes the text of Gulliver's Travels with its original typography Nouns are capitalized some Words or Phrases are in Italics though sometimes it is hard to figure out the Reason why and footnotes Since these editions are meant primarily for students many of the footnotes clarify terms that I myself did not need clarified “inimitable” for instance but others are helpful when it comes to background and symbolism The book also includes six critical essays and I liked the variety of these I especially enjoyed the essays by Mitchell Kalpakgian Gulliver the Epic 'Hero' and 'Great' Travel Writer A Modern Battles the Ancients and Dutton Kearney The Man Who Is Not Virtue Politics and Gulliver's TravelsIf Robinson Crusoe is a realist novel Gulliver's Travels is a work of fantasy Both are great traditions in English literature and both of these books constitute early examples that have stood the test of time Both works further are highly moralizing though the difference lies in the focus Defoe's novel presents a positive example; Swift's book several negative ones In a sense these works are two sides of the same coin There is something for everyone in Gulliver's Travels I don't hesitate to call it one of the most amazing books I've ever read Some might say it is not a book for children but I disagree It is a book for children but that is only one of the many things that it isThanks for reading and enjoy the book Ladybird Classics: Gullivers Travels I'm glad there is a company keeping up the unabridged versions For those looking for unabridged you probably know what that means For others it just means uncut or parts not removed This is reuired in cases of book reports and projects or those that want the full storyThe print is pretty small This is not a complaint from me as it doesn't bother me Just a heads up if you have trouble with smaller font printOverall we are very happy with the book It's a great price point cover pages are decent I highly recommend to purchase for kids and adults to read through the classics at a great price and unabridged Ladybird Classics: Gullivers Travels
