Swifty
Nottingham Evening Post, "Classic of the Week", October 2 2004
A Tale of a Tub, by Jonathan Swift, Penguin Great Ideas, £3.99
A Tale of a Tub, the story goes, destroyed Jonathan Swift's career. For a rising young clergyman in 1696, it probably wasn't wise to write a slashing satire on fashionable nonsense - especially one that said bishops were no more than "an apt conjunction of lawn and black satin". But if it buried Swift's hopes of satin (probably underneath the lawn), the Tale launched one of the greatest comic writers in the language. And if you don't lean too hard on the flimsy plot, it's still funny - and shocking - three centuries later. This handsome new version is the easiest way to read it.
A Tale of a Tub, by Jonathan Swift, Penguin Great Ideas, £3.99
A Tale of a Tub, the story goes, destroyed Jonathan Swift's career. For a rising young clergyman in 1696, it probably wasn't wise to write a slashing satire on fashionable nonsense - especially one that said bishops were no more than "an apt conjunction of lawn and black satin". But if it buried Swift's hopes of satin (probably underneath the lawn), the Tale launched one of the greatest comic writers in the language. And if you don't lean too hard on the flimsy plot, it's still funny - and shocking - three centuries later. This handsome new version is the easiest way to read it.
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