Gulliver's Travels
Preserved but no longer current.
This, the best known of the works of Jonathan Swift (1667- 1745) was published in 1726. It consists of four travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver. The first is to Lilliput, a country of tiny men and women some six inches high; the second is to Brob- dingnag, a land of giants as big in comparison to Gulliver as he was to the Lilliputians. His third voyage took him to Laputa, the flying island inhabited by scientific quacks.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “Gulliver's Travels” mean?
This, the best known of the works of Jonathan Swift (1667- 1745) was published in 1726. It consists of four travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver. The first is to Lilliput, a country of tiny men and women some six inches high; the second is to Brob- dingnag, a land of giants as big in comparison to Gulliver as he was to the Lilliputians. His third voyage took him to Laputa, the flying island inhabited by scientific quacks.
Is “Gulliver's Travels” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.