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Lands of make believe? How Gulliver's Travels highlighted tensions in Georgian Britain
Gulliver’s Travels, a picaresque yarn of unknown countries and bizarre peoples, has become a literary classic. But as Robert Hume reveals, behind Jonathan Swift’s fantasy lay a thinly veiled attack on the Georgian political elite
Published: November 13, 2026 at 3:30 PM
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On the evening of Thursday 8 August 1726, a mysterious packet was dropped off by horse-drawn carriage at the home of London publisher Benjamin Motte. Inside was the first quarter of a manuscript and a peculiar letter from a certain Richard Sympson, claiming that he had edited his cousin’s account of some extraordinary travels. Sympson admitted that the text might seem “a little Satyrical”, but assured the recipient that it would “sell very well”. Motte was instructed not to let the manuscript out of his sight, and given three days to reach a decision. If he wished to publish, he should pay £200 up front. He did agree to publish, and received the remaining pages – though paid later.
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Presented in four parts, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World records Lemuel Gulliver’s journeys to fanciful lands over the course of 16 years and seven months, his escapades interrupted only for brief visits to his family back in England.
The book begins with the former ship’s surgeon sailing from Bristol on 4 May 1699 – a decade after the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ had limited the monarch’s power and boosted that of parliament’s bickering Whig and Tory factions. Driven by an “insatiable Desire” to see foreign lands, Gulliver witnesses astonishing sights. He meets frisky people less than six inches tall in the islands of Lilliput and Blefuscu. In Brobdingnag, he encounters a nine-year-old girl who, though 40 feet tall, is considered short for her age. He discovers that the inhabitants of a flying island called Laputa are obsessed with measurement, yet unable to make themselves properly fitting clothes. Finally, in Houyhnhnmland, he confronts the Yahoos – brutes in human form, howling and making “odious faces” – who live alongside the Houyhnhnms, calm horses who value “a short silence” before speaking.
Gulliver (right) speaks to the gargantuan king of Brobdingnag in a c1900 illustration. The traveller’s revelations lead the monarch to conclude that the English are “the most pernicious race of little odious vermin” | Credit: Getty Images
Fantastic satire
Clearly, Gulliver’s Travels can be read on one level as a fantastical fairy tale – an adventure through exotic lands populated by dwarves, giants and magicians. On another, though, it’s dripping with innuendo – a biting satire targeting the bickering political factions, corrupt leaders and social ills of the day. But who wrote it? And how did readers and its targets react to the publication of such an incendiary and potentially libellous book?
The shady ‘Richard Sympson’ who’d delivered that mysterious manuscript in 1726 was actually one Jonathan Swift, born in Dublin in 1667 to Protestant Anglo-Irish parents, though his father had died by the time of Jonathan’s birth. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin but experienced a succession of professional disappointments, aggravated by an inner-ear disorder that caused nausea and vertigo.
Dripping with innuendo, Gulliver’s Travels is a biting satire targeting bickering political factions, corrupt leaders and social ills
Moving to England around 1688, Swift became secretary to Whig politician Sir William Temple but, without any real prospect of advancement, in 1694 he left to take holy orders in the Church of Ireland. He moved back and forth between Ireland and England over the following years, during which he also developed writing and political careers, penning propagandist works for the Tories deriding the Whigs and attacking wrongdoing and incompetence.
In London, Swift enjoyed the company of other satirical writers and poets, including Alexander Pope, in an informal literary association known as the Scriblerus Club. In 1714, he returned to Ireland where he continued his writing, targeting colonialism, deprivation and social injustice, particularly in the land of his birth.
Jonathan Swift in the early 18th century. The clergyman’s writings derided political incompetence and social injustice, particularly in the land of his birth, Ireland | Credit: Getty Images
Over the years that followed, financial scandal and corruption gripped England. It came to light that influential Whig politicians had received gifts from the over-hyped South Sea Company before its stock crashed in 1720, ruining many of the richest people in the land. Yet Robert Walpole – regarded as Britain’s first prime minister (1721–42), and who had earlier been imprisoned for corruption – managed to build the lavish Palladian Houghton Hall in Norfolk.
Against this backdrop, Swift had been writing the novel that would make his name: Gulliver’s Travels. The first full draft was completed by summer 1725, and the following spring he returned to England, where he met numerous literary and political bigwigs including Pope and Walpole, and prepared the manuscript that was delivered to Motte before sailing back across the Irish Sea.
Published in two volumes on 28 October 1726 at a hefty eight shillings and sixpence, the first print run sold out within a week; 10,000 copies were bought in the first two months. Poet and dramatist John Gay, a fellow member of the Scriblerus Club, claimed that it was read “from the cabinet-council to the nursery”. Gulliver’s Travels was a literary sensation – and its themes, aims and reception reveal much about the social and political milieu of England and Ireland during the reigns of Queen Anne and George I.
Hot takes
Three more Georgian novels with subversive political subtexts
Making a mockery of social mores The History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)
This tale of an unfortunate lad and his misadventures depicts a rigidly hierarchical society in which political power lies in the hands of a male-dominated landed elite. In it, Fielding lampoons decorum and pedigree: Master Blifil, of respectable birth, is outwardly pious and seemingly fit to govern but inwardly a “rascal”. Yet Tom, a mere foundling, is “honest”. Comedy of manners The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett (1771) In this lively romp across Georgian Britain, the action is recounted through 84 engaging letters from a cast of six colourful characters commenting on the destinations and personalities they encounter. The Duke of N[ewcastle] is referred to as an “ape in politics” and the “father of corruption” who had personally chosen every bishop. Bath Corporation is blamed for noise and dirt, with hypochondriac gentlemen getting “lost in a mob of impudent plebeians”. Castaway celebration or colonialist critique? Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719) On his desert island, Crusoe becomes an owner, a “lord” with a “castle”, a “prince” who could “hang [or] give liberty” to his subjects, a colonist who educates the cannibal Friday and expects to be called “Master”. Like European rulers, he accumulates wealth, power, even slaves. Though some have read it as a celebration of colonial triumphs, it’s widely seen as a satire on imperial expansionism.
Ridicule as a weapon
Satire was a weapon wielded commonly by 18th-century caricaturists, pamphleteers and, increasingly, novelists. By diminishing human grandeur and highlighting blemishes, it revealed “hooves under the petticoat and horns beneath the periwig”, as Paddy Bullard observes in The Oxford Handbook of Eighteenth-Century Satire (2019). With intriguing storylines and characters, novels were effective instruments for drawing the readers’ attention to the flaws of their times.
For example, the diminutive Lilliputians suggest all that is trivial in society, and their hostility towards the Blefuscudians recalls the pettiness of the rivalry between England and France in Swift’s day. The “low Heels” and “high Heels” represent Whigs and Tories, who “neither eat nor drink, nor talk with each other”. The episode in which “Man Mountain” Gulliver extinguishes a fire in the Empress of Lilliput’s apartment by urinating on it could perhaps allude to the hasty, legally questionable settlement agreed in 1713 by the Tory government to end conflict between France and Britain during the War of the Spanish Succession.
Contemporary readers would have spotted the analogy offered by the eight-year efforts of a Lagado scientist to extract sunbeams from cucumbers, recalling Isaac Newton’s experiments at the Royal Society. Other individuals are also identifiable: the hobbling Lilliputian “Heir to the Crown”, one heel higher than the other, corresponds to the Prince of Wales, later George II.
An illustration from a 1912 edition depicts a Lagado scientist’s lengthy efforts to extract sunbeams from cucumbers, recalling the experiments of Isaac Newton at London’s Royal Society | Credit: Alamy
Walpole, meanwhile, is caricatured as pompous little Flimnap, Lord High Treasurer of Lilliput. Swift lampoons him for dancing on a rope and creeping under the emperor’s stick, hinting at Walpole’s efforts to curry favour with King George I.
Amusing as these vignettes are, though, Swift had serious intentions. During his four voyages, Gulliver is often led to reflect on the “vices and follies” infecting politics, stressing four key areas of concern.
The first theme Swift highlights is the abuse of power. Take the minuscule emperor of Lilliput, dubbed the “delight and terror of the universe”, who commands a huge territory stretching “to the extremities of the globe”. His prime minister has accumulated great wealth while ordinary people live in misery and fear of their governors’ whims. On pain of exile, Lilliputians must crack eggs at the “smaller end” (the Protestant way), never at the “larger end” (the traditional Catholic way).
Swift had serious intentions: during his four voyages, Gulliver often reflects on the “vices and follies” infecting politics
Similarly, the king of Laputa has almost unlimited power: he can, at will, deprive the colony of Balnibarbi of sun and rain, hurl down rocks, even attempt to let the flying island drop on rebel cities such as Lindalino. With these narratives, Swift alludes to the idea that Ireland has been reduced to the status of a colony, in the iron grip of its English masters.
An illustration from c1916 shows Gulliver in the land of Lilliput, where people stand no more than six inches tall but harbour petty rivalries that echo 18th-century England’s court and government | Credit: Getty Images
Impossible chimeras
Swift also targets corruption and favouritism. In Maldonada, those seeking promotion lick the dust strewn around the royal footstool. In Glubbdubdrib, island of sorcerers and magicians, Gulliver summons from the dead three kings who boast that “in their whole reigns they did never once prefer any person of merit, unless by mistake”.
The king of Brobdingnag repeatedly interrogates his ‘miniature’ guest, Gulliver, asking whether lords and judges are honest in England, and if bribes influence “vulgar voters”. Gulliver’s answers lead the king to conclude that the English are “the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the Earth”. And political strategists at Lagado Academy, Balnibarbi, try to persuade monarchs to choose ministers for their capacity and virtue, and to reward merit, but in Gulliver’s opinion these are “wild impossible chimæras”.
Third, Swift pillories the lack of concern for public welfare shown by scientists and politicians. Lagado scientists spend their whole lives on mad projects, such as discovering how to rear sheep without wool or convert ice into gunpowder. War is indeed one of the worst “evils” caused by princes, who “never think they have land or people enough to govern”, and who enslave their captives to “civilise” them, bemoans the king of Brobdingnag. He declares that “whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together”.
A c1911 illustration shows Gulliver with a Houyhnhnm, one of the noble, rational horselike beings that share their land with the Yahoos – who display the worst traits of humankind | Credit: Getty Images
Finally, in the eyes of Swift, the very nature of politicians makes good government unattainable. Those finely dressed members of the all-powerful House of Lords, “bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury” and “smitten with pride”, are not “people of quality” at all. They are “detestable”, “unteachable”, smelly Yahoos in every respect – just whiter, less hairy, and with shorter claws.
They are a race apart from the “wise and virtuous” Houyhnhnms, “the perfection of nature”, who significantly have no word for lying – a trait endemic among England’s lawyers. A Lagado professor suggests that parliament’s “jabbering” loudmouths might be led to “moderation” by having their brains sawn in two, and exchanging one half with their opponent, so “the two half brains… within the space of one scull, would soon come to a good understanding”.
Incendiary episodes
Despite his righteous anger, Swift was well aware that his barbs would likely provoke a backlash from the ruling and political classes, and that no printer would be “brave enough to venture his eares” being slit for seditious libel. So, before submitting the manuscript for publication, he cut the most politically explosive elements, had the text copied so that his writing could not be used in evidence against him, delivered the work anonymously to Motte, and fled to Ireland.
Another strategy Swift employed to mitigate accusations of personal attacks in his book was to make Gulliver emphasise that it is his interviewers who raise “doubts” and “queries” about political practices, never himself. Gulliver’s own criticisms, he insists, do not apply to England, “the pride and envy of the world”. Even after softening his original material in these ways, though, Swift complained that publisher Benjamin Motte further diluted the satire and “mangled and murdered pages”.
Isaac Cruikshank’s coloured 1798 etching A Whig Toast – A Tory Sentement lampoons reformist politicians’ claims of championing government reform while clinging to wealth and power, but also skewers conservatives who revere the monarchy and resist change. Gulliver’s Travels took aim at both | Credit: Getty Images
Unsurprisingly, responses to Gulliver’s Travels ranged from acclaim to affront and anger. Some readers began signing themselves “Yahoo”; others tried speaking Houyhnhnm. The book was applauded by fellow members of the Scriblerus Club including Alexander Pope and John Arbuthnot, and Henry Fielding praised it for ridiculing “several errors and immoralities” of the age.
Many politicians thought Swift’s satire too severe, but stopped short of taking legal action to complain of specific examples lest they be embarrassed in court. Meanwhile, outraged churchgoers called it “evil”, complaining that it belittled human nature. In his 1747–48 novel Clarissa, fellow author Samuel Richardson has his character Lovelace condemn the “abominable Yahoo-story”.
Across Europe, opinion was also split. Gulliver’s Travels quickly sold out in France, where it inspired similar works about imaginary voyages. Voltaire commended Swift’s “strokes of imagination”, though he doubted that French people would appreciate the political satire. Translator Pierre-François Desfontaines cut “impenetrable allegories… base thoughts, crude banter and insipid jokes”, and added his own moral messages.
Gulliver learns navigation skills before his first voyage, in a c1916 illustration. In the three centuries since Swift’s book was published, his goal of ending corruption has yet to be achieved | Credit: Getty Images
Many considered the work a mere expression of its author’s misanthropy. German writer Christoph Martin Wieland labelled the Yahoos “a hideous mixture of ape and devil”. Swiss anatomist Albrecht von Haller slated the book’s “gross and indecent” imagery. Details such as turning human excrement back into food and sucking wind from the posterior with bellows were just vile obscenities, it was claimed.
In Italy, the precise references to ships, measurements and dates led Venice bookshops to sell the Travels as a genuine account by a Mr Lemuel Gulliver of his adventures in unknown lands. Theologian Elia D’Amato defended the authenticity of the giants in Part II, because they were corroborated by the Book of Genesis.
Details such as turning human excrement back into food and sucking wind from the posterior were deemed just vile obscenities
Throughout the 18th century new editions were published, including one for children in the 1770s. Since then, the novel has become a classic. In 1946, George Orwell declared that: “If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put Gulliver’s Travels among them.”
The secret of its enduring success lies in the very fact that the bleak portrait it paints of politics and human nature continues to hold true even today. By exposing corruption, Swift aimed to put a “full stop” to it. Six months after the book’s publication, though, he admitted that it had not produced “one single effect according to mine intentions”. Three centuries later, we might look at the world and say the same thing.
Robert Hume is a writer and former history teacher. His latest book, The Hidden Lives of Jack the Ripper’s Victims (Pen & Sword), is out now in paperback and audiobook
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This article was first published in the December 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
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