SWIFT, Jonathan (1667-1745). Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World ... by Lemuel Gulliver. London: Benj[amin] Motte, 1726.

Fresh and lovely copy of the first edition of Swift’s masterpiece, Teerink A, in a contemporary binding with the portrait of Gulliver in second state on paper with vertical chain lines. Swift's ahead-of-its-time utopian romp succeeds on many levels: as a Scriblerian satire, a burlesque travelogue, a moral fable, an anti-novel, an adventure in science fiction, a uniquely loved children’s book, and also a personal psychodrama. One of its great qualities is the kind of verisimilitude normally associated with Defoe applied to a world of exalted fantasy. The work remains “absolutely original, unequaled, unexampled,” words which Pope, in a letter to Lord Orrery, applied to all of Swift’s writings (A. Pope, Corr. iv. 59).

The Travels were written in Ireland, probably between 1720 and 1725, and Swift brought the finished manuscript to London with him when he left Dublin in March 1726. As the time of publication approached, it was frequently discussed by his friends—but even after its appearance on 28 October 1726 Swift kept up the public pretense of having had no hand in it. Arbuthnot believed it would have as great a run as Bunyan, and Gay wrote of the impression being "sold in a week" and "read from the cabinet council to the nursery." The manuscript had been delivered to Motte's door by Charles Ford, but it was through Pope's efforts that Swift obtained £200 for the copyright. He was to claim that this was the only occasion that he ever made a farthing by his writings (to Pulteney, 12 May, 1735). Ashley VI, p.28; Grolier English 42; Rothschild 2104; Teerink 289a; PMM 185.

Two volumes, octavo (191 x 120mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait of Gulliver [second state] and 6 plates (a few neatly repaired short tears in margins, occasional light dustsoiling). Contemporary English paneled calf (rebacked preserving original spine panel with other sympathetic restorations to boards, flyleaves retained). Provenance: Francis Meysey (armorial bookplate).