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ratings: ★★★★★ (4.6/5)
Genre: Satire, Classic Literature, Fantasy, Adventure

Book Review:
Many people know Gulliver's Travels as a children's book, a fantastic adventure story about a man who visits lands of little people and giants. And it is that. But it is also so much more. Jonathan Swift's masterpiece is one of the most savage, brilliant, and unsettling satires ever written, a book that uses the guise of a travel memoir to launch a devastating attack on the follies and vices of humanity.

The novel is divided into four parts, each recounting a different voyage. In the first and most famous, Gulliver is shipwrecked on Lilliput, a land where the people are only six inches tall. He is a giant among them, and Swift uses this perspective to expose the absurdity of human politics. The Lilliputians are consumed by ridiculous disputes—over which end of an egg to crack, or whether to wear high heels or low—that are obvious parodies of the religious and political conflicts of Swift's own England.

In the second voyage, the tables are turned. Gulliver finds himself in Brobdingnag, a land of giants where he is the tiny one. Now he is the one who is examined and found wanting. When he proudly describes the glories of England to the giant king, the king is horrified by the corruption, violence, and greed he hears, concluding that the English are ''the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.''

The third voyage is a more scattered and bizarre journey to the flying island of Laputa and other strange lands, where Swift satirizes the pretensions of scientists, philosophers, and projectors. It is often seen as the weakest section, but it is full of brilliant and hilarious inventions.

The fourth voyage is the most disturbing of all. Gulliver reaches the land of the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent, noble, and utterly rational horses. They live in perfect harmony, governed by reason. They rule over the Yahoos, a race of filthy, degenerate, and brutal creatures who are unmistakably human. Gulliver comes to adore the Houyhnhnms and to despise the Yahoos, and when he is forced to leave, he returns to England unable to bear the sight of his own fellow humans, whom he now sees as nothing but Yahoos.

Gulliver's Travels is a work of immense power and complexity. It is hilarious, but it is also deeply unsettling. Swift's rage at human folly is so profound that it becomes misanthropic. The final section is a bleak and despairing vision of humanity's capacity for evil.

This Wordsworth Classics edition is an excellent way to experience this masterpiece. Doreen Roberts's introduction and notes provide valuable context, and the cover, featuring a detail from a French illustration of Gulliver in Lilliput, is charming and evocative.

Gulliver's Travels is an essential read for anyone who loves great literature. It is a book that will make you laugh, make you think, and maybe even make you despair for the human race. It is a timeless classic, and it deserves a place on every bookshelf. Highly recommended.