Gulliver's Travels: An Account of the Four Voyages Into Several Remote Nations of the World. Now Written Down
The Heritage Press, 1940. Illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg. First Heritage Press Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine / No jacket issued; Matching slip case Near Fine. Item #5392
First Heritage Press Edition, Hardcover with matching slipcase, published in 1940. Near Fine edition in Near Fine matching slipcase and complete with original publisher's insert.
Book has lovely sprinkled (speckled) page edges, is tightly bound, and still shows sharp corners. A touch of bumping to upper/lower spine. Interior is clean and well-preserved, free of markings, inscriptions, annotations or foxing. Slight signs of handling to the hardcover panels, minimal, with just a touch of sunning to the spine. Gold gilt lettering on the spine and circular nautical medallion on the front panel still bright and unrubbed. Filled with illustrations throughout which remain bright. Complete with matching black slipcase. Includes gazette style, four page original publisher's insert, "The Heritage Club Sandglass, Number III: 26." Both slipcase and book are in Near Fine condition, both well-preserved and fresh.
Swift’s satire was profoundly popular upon release and has endured throughout literary history as a classic. While most readers were introduced to “Gulliver’s Travels” as children via the more sanitized, edited version, Swift’s satire explores his bleak view about a dark nature intrinsic to the human race. Writer J. Douglas Canfield touched on this in his 1973 essay, “Corruption and Degeneration in Gulliver’s Travels,” sourced from the Notre Dame English Journal, where he wrote that Swift’s entertaining classic intentionally explores “factionalism, religious fanaticism, linguistic nationalism, the star-chambered injustice and inhumanity of the ruling cabal, and especially the pride and tyrannical ambition of the king…corruptions humorously distorted but rooted in reality.”
In a bit of literary gossip, it's well known that biographer Samuel Johnson (often referenced in pop culture as “Samuel Johnson Reading” or “WTF Am I Reading”) had an axe to grind with Dean Johnathan Swift (Swift, who became Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, had no qualms reminding others of the title). Contemporaries James Boswell (Johnson’s biographer) and explorer/writer Sir Walter Raleigh both commented publicly about Johnson’s rants towards Swift. Johnson’s “The Life of Swift” was a sort of burn book, with Johnson frequently taking shots at the Dean for being a bit overhyped, a bit too frugal, so prideful in casual conversation that he pushed others away, and full of irritating neurotic tics, including a vow to never wear glasses, even if it meant he couldn’t read in old age. (To be fair, there are rumors of Johnson having his own tics, like hoarding orange peels. Allegedly.) Rumors has it Johnson’s resentment may have started when the older, more established Swift turned down his request for help getting a degree at Trinity College, where Swift himself studied as a young boy. Trinity’s records (via the Library of Trinity College, Dublin) still has a permanent note that Swift was a terrible philosophy student who just barely earned his degree.
Price: $95.00 other currencies