Week #50 – Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Welcome to 2023!  On Mondays this year, let’s discuss and have fun with books. No I’m not writing book reviews. But this website is for writers, and writers like books right? So let’s have FUN with books!

Week #50 – Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, 1726

Gulliver's Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a satire, a parody of the popular travel novel. It mocks English customs and the politics of the day. Gulliver has four adventures, (1) he travels to Lilliput where the inhabitants are only 6” tall, (2) he travels to Brobdingnag where the inhabitants are giants, (3) he travels to Laputa where the inhabitants have great learning but no practical application, and (4) he travels to the land of the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent horses who are more rational and communal than the humanoid race called Yahoos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels

You can read it here

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/829/829-h/829-h.htm

It was made into a movie in 1939

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031397/

And in 1977

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076119/

And a TV mini-series in 1996

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115195/

And another movie in 2010 with Jack Black

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320261/

Other stories featuring small people are The Borrowers, Horton Hears a Who, The Indian in the Cupboard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Other stories featuring giants are David and Goliath, Jack and the Beanstalk, Harry Poter, and Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Have you read Gulliver's Travels or any other book with small people or giants? Tell us in the comments!