This vintage book contains Jonathan Swift's 1704 satire, "A Tale of a Tub". The first major work that he wrote, it is a prose parody about two brothers who are each representative of the chief aspects of western Christianity. It mainly deals with the ideas of religious enthusiasm, pride, and credulity. Published at a time when religion was an intrinsic aspect of politics, the work was widely condemned, with Queen Anne going as far as to call it "profane". Contents include: "The Introduction", "A Digression Concerning Critics", "A Tale of a Tub", "A Digression in the Modern Kind", "A Tale of a Tub", "A Digression in Praise of Digressions", "A Tale of a Tub", "A Digression Concerning the Original", "A Farther Digression", "A Tale of a Tub", et cetera. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was an Anglo-Irish essayist, satirist, poet, and cleric. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction.

Reproduction of the original.

This definitive Companion provides a critical overview of literary culture in the period from John Milton to William Blake. Its broad chronological range responds to recent reshapings of the canon and identifies new directions of study. The Companion is composed of over fifty contributions from leading scholars in the field, its essays offer students a comprehensive and accessible survey of the field from a wide range of perspectives. It also, however, gives researchers and faculty the opportunity to update their acquaintance with new critical and scholarly work. The volume meets the needs of an intellectual world increasingly given over to inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary study by covering philosophical, political, cultural and historical writing, as well as literary writing. Unlike other similar volumes, the main body of the Companion consists of readings of individual texts, both those commonly and less commonly studied.

This authoritative edition brings together a unique selection from the full range of Swift's fifty-year career--prose, poetry, and letters--to give the essence of his work and thinking. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) is best known as the author of Gulliver's Travels, which alone would have secured his place in the history of English literature. But in addition to this classic fictional satire, Swift wrote numerous works concerning politics, religion, and Ireland, some savage, others humorous, all suffused with his tremendous wit and inventiveness. This anthology includes satirical works such as A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books, political pamphlets, pieces for the popular press, poems, and a generous selection from Swift's correspondence. Presented chronologically, the anthology offers a new and clearer awareness of the unity as well as the complexity of Swift's vision, and the powerful bonds between disparate pieces.

Jonathan Swift has had a profound impact on almost all the national literatures of Continental Europe. The celebrated author of acknowledged masterpieces like A Tale of a Tub (1704), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729), the Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin, was courted by innumerable translators, adaptors, and retellers, admired and challenged by shoals of critics, and creatively imitated by both novelists and playwrights, not only in Central Europe (Germany and Switzerland) but also in its northern (Denmark and Sweden) and southern (Italy, Spain, and Portugal) outposts, as well as its eastern (Poland and Russia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria) and Western parts - from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the present day.

Draws on discoveries made in the past three decades to paint a new portrait of the satirist, speculating on his parentage, love life, and relationships while claiming that the public image he projected was intentionally misleading.