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This volume contains the three works which together make up Jonathan Swift's early satiric and intellectual masterpiece, A Tale of a Tub: the Tale itself, The Battel of the Books, and The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit. Incorporating much new knowledge, this 2010 edition provides the first full scholarly treatment of this important work for fifty years. The introduction discusses publication, composition, and authorship; sources, analogues and generic models; reception; and religious, scientific and literary contexts (including the ancients and moderns controversy). Detailed explanatory notes address many previously unexplained issues in this famously rich and difficult work. Texts have been fully collated and edited according to modern principles and are accompanied with a textual introduction and full textual apparatus. Illustrations include title pages, the eight engravings from the fifth edition, and original designs for these engravings. Extensive associated contemporary mater

The years 1711 to 1714 saw some of Swift's most brilliant and powerful political pamphleteering. Writing for the Tory government, he did more to settle the fate of parties and the nation than any literary figure, before or since. This volume collects together major defences of the government's position, including The Conduct of the Allies and The Publick Spirit of the Whigs, vigorous attacks on his opponents, short satirical broadsides, and brief contributions to periodicals. It also includes some little known work not present in previous editions of Swift. This is the first fully annotated edition of these works. A comprehensive introduction, drawing on contemporary literary and historical scholarship, is supported by detailed explanatory notes on each text. It is also the first edition to identify and collate all relevant contemporary editions and provide a full account of the textual history of each work.

The misadventures of Lemuel Gulliver certainly are extraordinary. First he is shipwrecked in a strange land, and finds himself a prisoner of the tiny inhabitants of Lilliput. Then he washes up in Brob