When Gulliver finds himself washed up on the shores of the island of Lilliput inhabited by ‘little people’ and taken prisoner his life is to change forever but that is just the beginning of his story. For following his escape from Lilliput his travels take him to the huge people of Brobdingnag, the floating island of Laputa and to the land of Houynhnmland where there are horses with great virtues. The characters are wonderfully drawn, and Gulliver has a great talent for the languages of each land and his travels also provide bitter insights into human behaviour. It is in the end an uncompromising reflection of mankind in its many guises but riveting all the same and essential reading.
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.
