Jonathan Swift, John Stubbs
Jonathan Swift, John Stubbs
List: $39.99 | Sale: $28.00
Club: $19.99

Jonathan Swift
The Reluctant Rebel

Author: John Stubbs

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Unabridged: 31 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/03/2017


Synopsis

Jonathan Swift's world-famous books?from Gulliver's Travels to A Modest Proposal?are unparalleled in their piercing critique of modern society. Half-orphaned, a Dubliner by birth, but a man who would always insist he was English, Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) was a figure of great contradictions. An essayist, political pamphleteer, poet, and cleric who became dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Swift satirized the powerful but aspired to political greatness, mocked men’s vanity but held himself in high esteem, and was a religious moralizer famed for his malice?a man sharply aware of humanity's flaws, but no less susceptible to them.

At once a revealing biography of a life that encompasses writing on religion, class, sex, power, and poverty and a portrait of the foremost political writer of his day, Jonathan Swift draws a vivid and nuanced account of an extraordinary man and a turbulent period of history.

About John Stubbs

John Stubbs studied English at Oxford and Renaissance literature at Cambridge, where he completed a doctorate. His book John Donne was awarded the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award and was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award. John lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by W.D. on January 26, 2021

Literary biography doesn't get much better than this. In fact, I'd put John Stubbs' Jonathan Swift up there with Richard Ellman's James Joyce or Deirdre Bair's Samuel Beckett—it's that good. Or to put it another way, I'd gladly read it again, which is not something I'd normally say about a biography......more

Goodreads review by Ron on November 29, 2017

This is an incredibly impressive biography that dramatically fleshes out the complexity of Swift's life. Stubbs is particularly good with the political twists and turns of the 17th & 18th centuries. And he adds much needed nuance to our understanding of Swift's final years.......more

Goodreads review by Brian on February 17, 2018

Not so much a biography as a politico-cultural history of the Restoration and early Georgian reigns wherein Swift plays his own part, this is an exceptionally well researched and written book. However, if the reader isn't ready for dozens of pages of historical background before relating Swift's par......more

Goodreads review by Ray on April 18, 2017

Read my in-depth review this Friday on bookreporter.com .......more