Jonathan Swift Books

1. The Writings of Jonathan Swift

This collection from W.W. Norton & Company includes some of the most famous works by Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels, "A Tale of a Tub," "The Battle of the Books," "A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit," numerous essays and other prose pieces, and poems.

2. Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift

by Christopher Fox (Editor). Cambridge University Press. From the publisher: "In addition to ensuring broad coverage of Jonathan Swift's writing by including early, as well as more well-known later works, this Companion offers access to current critical and theoretical issues concerning the author. Special emphasis is placed on Swift's problematic relationship with the land of his birth, Ireland, and on his place as a political writer in a highly politicized age."

3. Jonathan Swift and Popular Culture

by Ann Cline Kelly. Palgrave. From the publisher: "Kelly’s Swift is instead a practical exponent of the popular and impresario of the literary image. She argues that Swift turned his back on the elite to write for a popular audience, and that he annexed scandals to his fictionalized print alter ego, creating a continual demand for works by or about this self-mythologized figure."

4. Jonathan Swift: The Irish Identity

by Robert Mahony. Yale University Press. From the publisher: "This book traces Swift's fluctuating reception in Ireland through the centuries, finding in Swift's ambivalence about his homeland - which he could not love even as he defended its cause - echoes and anticipations of the ambiguities that have marked the development of Irish identity at large. Mahony looks at Swift's posthumous reputation in literary culture and examines his unusual place in Irish political rhetoric."

5. Swift's Politics: A Study in Disaffection

by Ian Higgins. Cambridge University Press. From the publisher: "Swift's writings of the 1690s, during the last four years of Queen Anne’s reign, and after the Hanoverian succession are shown to contain Jacobitical political implications when examined in their context in the 'paper wars' of the period."

6. Swift's Landscape

by Carole Fabricant. University of Notre Dame Press. From the publisher: "Swift's Landscape argues for a fundamental reevaluation of Jonathan Swift's place in eighteenth-century literary history. Combining history, biography, and literary criticism, Carole Fabricant restores both Swift's life and his writings to their proper landscape - by emphasizing the influence of the author's Irish involvements and environs on his work."

7. Swift as Nemesis

by Frank Boyle. Stanford University Press. From the publisher: "How do we read the works of Jonathan Swift, who ridiculed the modern even as it was taking shape? The author approaches the question of modernity in Swift by way of a theory of satire from Aristotle via Swift (and Bakhtin) that eschews modern notions that satire is meant to reform and correct."

8. Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift

by Joao Froes (Editor). University of Delaware Press. From the publisher: "Despite its importance as the earliest biographical account of Swift, it had not been closely studied by scholars except for A. C. Elias Jr., who was the first to ascertain which was the earliest printing of the work as well as Orrery's personal involvement with textual corrections."

9. Jonathan Swift and the Church of Ireland 1710-1724

by Christopher J. Fauske. Irish Academic Press. From the publisher: "This book situates Swift in the context of his political endeavours on behalf of the Church of Ireland, especially as demonstrated by the battles between Archbishop William King and the English-appointed authorities. It examines the contemporary economic climate, especially the increasing strains between Great Britain's trade goals and the continuing mercantilist structure of Irish economic life."