Book Description

The collected letters of Jonathan Swift D.D., Irish dean and celebrated author of <I>Gulliver's Travels, have long been esteemed with the best to have emerged from eighteenth century England, an age distinguished for the excellence of its letters. In the half century from 1690 to 1740 some two hundred and thirty contemporaries, in all walks of life, thought to preserve his autographs: among them were his literary friends, his printers and publishers, politicians of the day in England and Ireland, his ecclesiastical superiors and other clergy, his friends of the nobility, and closer friends and relatives. He also diligently kept many of their replies. Together these project a marvellously animated panorama not only of his own life, but of his varied acquaintance, and the scenes of London, Dublin, and rural Ireland through a deeply interesting historical era. This entirely new edition prepared by a recognized authority presents over 1500 letters, derived from the earliest authentic texts in manuscript or print, and provides the most comprehensive commentary to date, based upon published and unpublished research of the last thirty years.