A Modest Proposal and Other Writings

A new selection of works by Britain's foremost prose satirist 

Easing poverty in Ireland by eating the children of the poor was the satirical "solution" suggested by Jonathan Swift in his essay "A Modest Proposal" (1729). Here Swift unleashes the full power of his ironic armory and corrosive wit, striking his targets-the ruling class and avaricious landlords-with deadly precision. This masterly essay is accompanied by a generous selection of prose works, among them humorous pamphlets critiquing British rule in his native Ireland, articles and correspondence, a loving eulogy to his beloved "Stella," the daughter of a house servant whom he mentored, and pieces on such diverse subjects as the nature of broomsticks, the joys of punning, and comical rules for servants.

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Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin on 30 November 1667, some months after his father's death. He was sent to Kilkenny Grammar School when he was six and later attended Trinity College, Dublin, where he received his BA degree in 1686. He is considered the foremost prose satirist in the English language, which stemmed from his criticism of Britain's repressive colonial policies in Ireland. Among Swift's best known works is his ironic masterpiece, 'A Modest Proposal' (1729), and his novel, Gulliver's Travels (1726). Swift died on 19 October 1745.

Carole Fabricant is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. She is the author of Swift's Landscape and has published widely on a number of eighteenth-century writers, including Alexander Pope, Edmund Burke and Bishop Berkeley, as well as on topics such as landscape gardening, travel, tourism and questions of colonialism and race in the eighteenth-centruy, especially as they relate to British-Irish relations during the period.