Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel

Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel

<p>A rich and riveting portrait of the man behind <em>Gulliver’s Travels</em>, by a “vivid, ardent, and engaging” (<em>New York Times Book Review</em>) author.</p><br /><p>One of Europe’s most important literary figures, Jonathan Swift was also an inspired humorist, a beloved companion, and a conscientious Anglican minister—as well as a hoaxer and a teller of tales. His anger against abuses of power would produce the most famous satires of the English language: <em>Gulliver’s Travels</em> as well as the <em>Drapier Papers</em> and the unparalleled <em>Modest Proposal</em>, in which he imagined the poor of Ireland farming their infants for the tables of wealthy colonists.</p><br /><p>John Stubbs’s biography captures the dirt and beauty of a world that Swift both scorned and sought to amend. It follows Swift through his many battles, for and against authority, and in his many contradictions, as a priest who sought to uphold the dogma of his church; as a man who was quite prepared to defy convention, not least in his unshakable attachment to an unmarried woman, his “Stella”; and as a writer whose vision showed that no single creed holds all the answers.</p><br /><p>Impeccably researched and beautifully told, in <em>Jonathan Swift</em> Stubbs has found the perfect subject for this masterfully told biography of a reluctant rebel—a voice of withering disenchantment unrivaled in English.</p>