Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift, Sheba Blake

Maison d'édition: Sheba Blake Publishing

Synopsis

Gulliver's Travels is a prose satire by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, that is both a satire on human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature. He himself claimed that he wrote Gulliver's Travels "to vex the world rather than divert it". The book became popular as soon as it was published. John Gay wrote in a 1726 letter to Swift that "It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery." he travel begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself a prisoner of a race of tiny people, less than 6 inches (0.50 ft) tall, who are inhabitants of the island country of Lilliput. After giving assurances of his good behavior, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favorite of the Lilliput Royal Court. He is also given permission by the King of Lilliput to go around the city on condition that he must not harm their subjects. At first, the Lilliputians are hospitable to Gulliver, but they are also wary of the threat that his size poses to them. The Lilliputians reveal themselves to be a people who put great emphasis on trivial matters. For example, which end of an egg a person cracks becomes the basis of a deep political rift within that nation. They are a people who revel in displays of authority and performances of power. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbors the Blefuscudians by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the royal court.

Disponible depuis: 19/04/2017.

Humour

D'autres livres qui pourraient vous intéresser

The Gilded Age

Mark Twain

First published in 1873, The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America-an age of corruption when crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously took advantage of the nation's peacetime optimism. With his characteristic wit and perception, Mark Twain and his collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner, attack the greed, lust, and naivete of their own time in a work which endures as a valuable social document and one of America's most important satirical novels.An EChristian, Inc production.

Voir livre

A Parcel for Anna Browne

Miranda Dickinson

The gift of a lifetime?Anna Browne is an ordinary woman living an ordinary life. Her day job as a receptionist in bustling London isn't exactly her dream, yet she has everything she wants. But someone thinks Anna Browne deserves more . . .When a parcel addressed to Anna Browne arrives, she has no idea who has sent it. Inside she finds a beautiful gift - one that is designed to be seen. And so begins a series of incredible deliveries, each one bringing Anna further out of the shadows and encouraging her to become the woman she was destined to be. As Anna grows in confidence, others begin to notice her - and her life starts to change.But who is sending the mysterious gifts, and why?A Parcel For Anna Browne is an utterly captivating novel by Sunday Times bestselling author Miranda Dickinson.

Voir livre

An English Guide to Birdwatching

Nicholas Royle

Silas and Ethel Woodlock retire to spend their twilight years by the
sea, only to find themselves traumatised by herring gulls. London
journalist Stephen Osmer writes a provocative essay about two
people called Nicholas Royle, one a novelist, the other a literary
critic. Whether Royle, the literary critic, is having an affair with
the beautiful Lily Lynch, and has stolen and published Silas
Woodlock's short story, 'Gulls', becomes a race to the death for
at least one of the authors.
Playfully commenting on the main story are 17 'Hides': primarily
about birds, ornithology and films (including Hitchcock's), these
short texts give us a different view of the messy business of being human, the fragility of the physical world we inhabit and the nature of writing itself.
Witty as well as erudite and delightful in its wordplay, An English Guide to Birdwatching explores the fertile hinterland between fact and fiction. In its focus on birds, climate change, the banking crisis, social justice and human migration, it is intensely relevant to wider political concerns; in its mischief and post-modern (or 'post-fiction') sensibility, it celebrates the transformative possibilities of language and the mutability of the novel itself.

Voir livre

Welcome to Nowhere

Caimh McDonnell

A little revenge never hurt anybody... 
When a gambling debt puts him between a rock and a swim in the Hudson with concrete shoes, Smithy has no choice but to take the worst job imaginable. The gig – as prey in leprechaun hunt for a bunch of Wallstreet jerks – goes as badly as it sounds. He could leave it there and write it off as a harsh lesson learned, but fourteen months later when Smithy comes up with a plan to take his revenge on the man behind it all, it is too good to resist. 
What is it they say about best-laid plans? Instead of teaching his nemesis, Louis, a valuable lesson, Smithy ends up saving him from an assassin. From there, Smithy and his friend Diller are dragged into his opponent’s messed-up world. Louis is part of ‘the Collectors’ a group with way more money than sense dedicated to the competitive acquisition of truly one-of-a-kind items that define the secret history of the world. 
When one of the group’s members loses his marbles, Smithy and Diller find themselves shanghaied to Nowhere. A well-named location in the middle of the desert, where a madman is trying to build an army from the worst of mankind. 
Welcome to Nowhere is a wild ride from the author renowned for the darkly comic thrills of The Dublin Trilogy series and the McGarry Stateside books. It is a standalone novel that is a perfect introduction to McDonnell’s blend of comedy and compelling story that is earning him a growing legion of loyal fans.

Voir livre

Divine Space Gods III: Rangda's...

Martin Lundqvist

When the Divine Plan is stupid, humanity’s future is at stake.
Due to an unfortunate calendar mistake, the Divine Plan faces a hiccup. Instead of giving birth to the Chosen One, the Martian Rebel Keila Eisenstein unleashes the evil Space Demon Rangda Kaliankan and her army of man-eating Xenos upon humankind.
“Fortunately”, The True Maker, the supreme deity of the Milky Way Galaxy, has a plan for dealing with the new threat. To convince Keila’s ex Metatron to find a surrogate mother for his and Keila’s unborn embryo, so the Chosen One can be born and sort out the mess that the True Maker caused. Six months later, Sabina is born.
Meanwhile, the new German leader, Hilda Muller realises how to save Earth from the Xeno invasion. Since the Germans haven’t won a war in a millennium, she bribes the Xeno invaders with copious quantities of German beer, which saves Earth. Because of Hilda’s grand plan, she is promoted to planetary leader.
Having failed to invade Earth, Rangda comes up with a new plan. She allies with the Martian Madman Melchior Dorevitch and his cannibal army. Together they defeat Rangda’s ancient enemies the Zetans. After this, Rangda, and Melchior begins an odyssey around the Milky Way looking for the magical plot devices, the Zeto Crystals.
Eventually, Rangda has all the Zeto Crystals, and Sabina, as the Chosen One, has to face Rangda. But there is an issue… Sabina hasn’t trained and doesn’t seem very keen to carry out the Divine Plan.
In the end, only a miracle can save us!

Voir livre

Miss Plum and Miss Penny

Dorothy Evelyn Smith

"I do not anticipate for one moment that Miss Plum has been murdered, though I should have some slight sympathy with her assassin if she had."Miss Penny is a middle-aged spinster living a cheerful, contented life, complete with perfect housekeeper, in an idyllic English village. Her romantic life consists of an annual Christmas card from her old flame George, and her social swirl involves Stanley, a prissy neighbor who keeps her in mind for a future wife, and Hubert, a neurotic widowed priest with an alienated son. Into this stable life comes Miss Plum, whom Miss Penny saves from drowning herself in a duck pond and takes into her quiet, orderly home. The villagers embrace the perpetually weepy, forlorn young woman—at first. But soon her welcome wears thin. With joyfully dark comedy, hilariously odd locals, and an unexpected reappearance from long-lost George, Dorothy Evelyn Smith brilliantly evokes the havoc wreaked by social niceties, misplaced sympathies, and keeping up appearances—not to mention the urge to defend one's peaceful existence!

Voir livre