Description
Contemporaries were mesmerized by the outrageous wit of Jonathan Swift (16671745), a writer still widely regarded as the greatest satirist of all time. Soon after Swift's death, his friends and enemies raced to publish the definitive account of the Dean of St Patrick's. Now, Routledge brings these major works together for the first time in a new, three-volume, facsimile collection, supplemented with a full introduction, bibliographies, and other textual apparatus.
The collection's editor avers that these highly influential biographies of one of the leading literary figures of his generation remain incompletely understood. The persistence of a number of myths can be traced back to these studies of Swift, including his own pseudo-biographical fragment on his early life. It is crucial that many of these biographies were written or commissioned by friends and allies of Swift and that some were writtenor were informed byhis enemies. The collection's editor makes clear that the live
