The work was immediately popular, not only in the British Isles but on the Continent as well.  No such form of political satire had ever appeared, and everyone was excited over its possibilities.  Not all parts of the work were considered equally good; some parts were thought to be failures, and the Fourth Voyage was as a whole deservedly unpopular.  The Voyages to Lilliput and to Brobdingnag were considered the best, and to them is to be attributed the greater part of the author’s fame.  Their popularity continues with the years.

Lemuel Gulliver is represented as a British sailor who had been educated as a doctor but whose wandering instincts led him back to the sea.  On his return from his voyages he writes the account of his adventures; and the manner in which this account is written is so masterly that we almost believe the things he tells.

In describing the manners, customs, and governments of the several countries, he shows in his inimitable way the weakness of his king, prince, nobles, government and mankind in general.

While the scholar and the man of affairs may still be interested in the political significance of what is said and in a study of the keen knowledge of human nature shown by the writer, yet it is principally as a story that the work is now popular.  Everybody enjoys reading about the wonderful people who existed only in the imagination of the great dean of Saint Patrick’s.

In this volume are printed some of the most enjoyable parts of the first and second voyages.  About the only changes from the original text are in the omission of those passages which contribute nothing to the narrative or which for other reasons it seems inadvisable to reprint.  These omissions put the real fictitious narrative into so small a compass that children will be entertained from beginning to end.

The Voyage to Lilliput was directed against the policy of the English Court during the reign of George I. The real differences between the parties were trifling; not more, to Swift’s idea, than that between High-heels and Low-heels in the court of Lilliput; and the controversies between the churches were not greater than those between the Big-endians and the Little-endians. As the Prince of Wales was thought to favor a union of parties, he was typified in the heir-apparent of Lilliput who wore one shoe with a high heel and one with a low heel.  This explanation will give an idea of the nature of Swift’s milder satire.

The Voyage to Brobdingnag advocates the principles then held by the Tory party in England and attacks those of the Whigs.

The Voyage to Laputa, from which we give no selections, was not generally understood and hence was not popular.  Its chief purpose was to ridicule the proceedings of the Royal Society, but Swift was not well enough acquainted with music and some of the other sciences fostered by the Society to attack them to advantage.