By “the finest satirist in the English language” (New York Times), Jonathan Swift’s satirical masterpiece, Gulliver’s Travels, is the extraordinary tale of Lemuel Gulliver’s encounters with the inhabitants of four strange and surreal lands—now available in a limited Olive Edition from HarperPerennial.

Olive Editions are exclusive small format editions of some of our bestselling and celebrated titles, featuring beautiful and unique hand-drawn cover illustrations. All Olive Editions are available for a limited time only.

336 pages

The classic tale of shipwreck and adventure in strange lands, Gulliver's Travels is also a wickedly clever satire on the nature of humankind

'A masterwork of irony ... that contains both a dark and bitter meaning and a joyous, extraordinary creativity of imagination' Malcolm Bradbury

Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour. Swift's savage satire views mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with an uncompromising reflection of ourselves.

This text, based on the first edition of 1726, reproduces all the original illustrations and includes an introduction by Robert Demaria, Jr, which discusses the ways Gulliver's Travels has been interpreted since its first publication.

327 pages