This critical introduction to Gulliver's Travels aims at giving a fresh and impartial account of the world-famous satire. It characterises the significant historical and literary background to the work, and explores the text itself in the reading order intended by Swift. It gives proper attention to Swift's narrative and stylistic art, and to the experience of the reader, which have tended to be neglected in the course of prolonged academic arguments over interpretation. It also discusses the relation of the four parts of the Travels to one another. A final chapter sketches the fictional aftermath of the Travels from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.