A Modest Proposal and Other Satires

" Good God ! What a genius I had when I wrote that book ! " observed Swift when, towards the end of his life, he looked at A Tale of a Tub once again, the first great satire of his youth. That hilarious history of the Christian churches appears here with The Battle of the Books, the Argument against Abolishing Christianity and three further razor-edged products of Swift's savage indignation. Foremost among them is A Modest Proposal, in which a seemingly rational voice outlines a plan for remedying the economic miseries of Ireland, a plan to which there can surely be no sensible objection... The author of Gulliver's Travels (also available in Könemann Classics) was the greatest satirist the British Isles have ever produced, and in this selection his formidable gifts are seen to the full.