[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Gulliver’s Travels
By Jonathan Swift
of classic literature, books and
novels at Planet eBook. Subscribe to our
and email newsletter.
THE PUBLISHER TO
THE READER.
As given in the original edition.
he author of these Travels, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, is my an-
cient and intimate friend; there is likewise some relation
between us on the mother’s side. About three years ago, Mr.
Gulliver growing weary of the concourse of curious people
coming to him at his house in Redrif, made a small pur-
chase of land, with a convenient house, near Newark, in
Nottinghamshire, his native country; where he now lives
retired, yet in good esteem among his neighbours.
Although Mr. Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire,
where his father dwelt, yet I have heard him say his family
came from Oxfordshire; to conirm which, I have observed
in the churchyard at Banbury in that county, several tombs
and monuments of the Gullivers.
Before he quitted Redrif, he let the custody of the fol-
lowing papers in my hands, with the liberty to dispose of
them as I should think it. I have carefully perused them
three times. he style is very plain and simple; and the only
fault I ind is, that the author, ater the manner of travel-
lers, is a little too circumstantial. here is an air of truth
Gulliver’s Travels
apparent through the whole; and indeed the author was
so distinguished for his veracity, that it became a sort of
proverb among his neighbours at Redrif, when any one af-
irmed a thing, to say, it was as true as if Mr. Gulliver had
spoken it.
By the advice of several worthy persons, to whom, with
the author’s permission, I communicated these papers, I
now venture to send them into the world, hoping they may
be, at least for some time, a better entertainment to our
young noblemen, than the common scribbles of politics
and party.
his volume would have been at least twice as large, if I
had not made bold to strike out innumerable passages re-
lating to the winds and tides, as well as to the variations
and bearings in the several voyages, together with the min-
ute descriptions of the management of the ship in storms,
in the style of sailors; likewise the account of longitudes
and latitudes; wherein I have reason to apprehend, that Mr.
Gulliver may be a little dissatisied. But I was resolved to it
the work as much as possible to the general capacity of read-
ers. However, if my own ignorance in sea afairs shall have
led me to commit some mistakes, I alone am answerable for
them. And if any traveller hath a curiosity to see the whole
work at large, as it came from the hands of the author, I will
be ready to gratify him.
As for any further particulars relating to the author, the
reader will receive satisfaction from the irst pages of the
book.
RICHARD SYMPSON.
Free eBooks at
Planet eBook.com
A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS
COUSIN SYMPSON.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1727.
I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you
shall be called to it, that by your great and frequent urgency
you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect
account of my travels, with directions to hire some young
gentleman of either university to put them in order, and
correct the style, as my cousin Dampier did, by my advice,
in his book called ‘A Voyage round the world.’ But I do
not remember I gave you power to consent that any thing
should be omitted, and much less that any thing should be
inserted; therefore, as to the latter, I do here renounce ev-
ery thing of that kind; particularly a paragraph about her
majesty Queen Anne, of most pious and glorious memo-
ry; although I did reverence and esteem her more than any
of human species. But you, or your interpolator, ought to
have considered, that it was not my inclination, so was it not
decent to praise any animal of our composition before my
master Houyhnhnm: And besides, the fact was altogether
false; for to my knowledge, being in England during some
part of her majesty’s reign, she did govern by a chief minis-
ter; nay even by two successively, the irst whereof was the
lord of Godolphin, and the second the lord of Oxford; so
that you have made me say the thing that was not. Likewise
in the account of the academy of projectors, and several pas-
sages of my discourse to my master Houyhnhnm, you have
either omitted some material circumstances, or minced or
changed them in such a manner, that I do hardly know my
Gulliver’s Travels
own work. When I formerly hinted to you something of this
in a letter, you were pleased to answer that you were afraid
of giving ofence; that people in power were very watchful
over the press, and apt not only to interpret, but to pun-
ish every thing which looked like an innuendo (as I think
you call it). But, pray how could that which I spoke so many
years ago, and at about ive thousand leagues distance, in
another reign, be applied to any of the Yahoos, who now
are said to govern the herd; especially at a time when I little
thought, or feared, the unhappiness of living under them?
Have not I the most reason to complain, when I see these
very Yahoos carried by Houyhnhnms in a vehicle, as if they
were brutes, and those the rational creatures? And indeed
to avoid so monstrous and detestable a sight was one prin-
cipal motive of my retirement hither.
hus much I thought proper to tell you in relation to
yourself, and to the trust I reposed in you.
I do, in the next place, complain of my own great want
of judgment, in being prevailed upon by the entreaties and
false reasoning of you and some others, very much against
my own opinion, to sufer my travels to be published. Pray
bring to your mind how oten I desired you to consid-
er, when you insisted on the motive of public good, that
the Yahoos were a species of animals utterly incapable of
amendment by precept or example: and so it has proved;
for, instead of seeing a full stop put to all abuses and corrup-
tions, at least in this little island, as I had reason to expect;
behold, ater above six months warning, I cannot learn that
my book has produced one single efect according to my in-
Free eBooks at
Planet eBook.com
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]