Olga Taranova from Marsh's Library celebrates the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Swift's literary masterwork Gulliver's Travels, the subject of a new exhibition at Dublin's oldest public library.
The moment that Jonathan Swift's Gulliver’s Travels was published in 1726 it became an overnight sensation in Britain and Ireland. The Travels were serialised within weeks of publication. The Penny London Post on 25 November 1726 wrote that the book 'bore so considerable a share in almost every conversation’.
Dozens of translations followed with unprecedented speed. Mikhail Lomonosov, a Russian scientist and founder of Moscow State University, was already comparing Swift to Aesop in his works as early as 1730s, praising it as an example of ‘pure fiction’, a story that didn’t take place and was composed primarily for ‘moral purposes’ while being highly entertaining.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Listen, via RTÉ Arena: John Banville on Gulliver's Travels at 300
It is hard to measure the popularity and cultural ripple effect of that 18th century book in modern terms. Something that absolutely everyone is aware of and has an opinion about: James Cameron’s Titanic, perhaps? Greta Gerwig’s Barbie? Heated Rivalry?
Speaking of the cinematic universe – in the 130-year existence of motion pictures, Lemuel Gulliver has been reimagined around 50 times. Rumour has it that Netflix is currently planning a new series focused on the Gulliver family. They’d better cast Leonardo DiCaprio (if they can’t get Connor Storrie) in the role that in recent decades was given to such giants of the screen as Richard Harris, Ted Danson and Jack Black.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Watch, via RTÉ Archives - a giant Gulliver marches through the streets of Dublin in 1988
There are so many themes in the novel that anyone adapting it can take it whatever direction they want, and they always do. In 1939 Paramount Pictures, jealous of Disney’s success with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, produced an animated film where Gulliver was basically a male version of Snow White, trying to cheerfully co-exist with an entire country of Lilliputians instead of dwarfs. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world the soviets had an ideology to promote in the 1930s. Their stop-motion animated fantasy The New Gulliver had the main character as a good communist lad while the Lilliputians represented corrupt western capitalists, albeit with cool jazzy tunes.
It is hard to measure the popularity and cultural ripple effect of that 18th century book in modern terms.
It has always been the size-shifting related trips that got most of the attention and ultimately reduced Gulliver to merely a children’s story. To be fair, kids do experience the world as tiny creatures next to adults, while towering as giants over their toys. However, there are many more fascinating journeys in the book that are extremely thought provoking to this day for people of all ages, tastes and backgrounds, perhaps even more poignant now, in our current decade of mass tourism and migration.
Watch the trailer for the 1996 version of Gulliver's Travels starring Ted Danson
What could be explored in the next adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels? What would be his ultimate dream destination in the second quarter of the 21st century?
He could head to one of those places like Lilliput where tiny politicians, divided only over the size of their tiny shoe heels, lead endless wars while nobody remembers exactly when and why they started. Big generous Gulliver helps them extinguish fire by urinating on it. Nothing gets resolved.
Or else he could end up in the land of giants, like Brobdingnag, where a farmer’s daughter turns him into a glamorous content creator for likes and profits and eventually sells him to the highest bidder. An eagle interferes, human trafficking dodged.
Watch the classic 1939 animated version of Gulliver's Travels
Speaking of glamour, would Gulliver be comfortable visiting a place in 2026 where people are immortal and wise, but plastic surgeries, fillers and other biohacking and looksmaxxing tricks aren’t available at all, just indefinite continuous natural ageing and decay? No? Cancel the trip to Luggnagg then. "Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old."
A trip to Glubbdubdrib could certainly end with a brilliant podcast deal. On the island of sorcerers Gulliver has all the secrets of history revealed to him, all the lies, conspiracy theories, dis-, mal- and mis- information explained or obscured. In the book he interviews only Alexander the Great, Hannibal and Caesar through time and space, but that could be just the first episode of a very long series, which should obviously be called Glubbdubdrib.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Watch, via RTÉ Archives: Gulliver washes up on Dollymount Strand, circa 1988
He could also just go to Japan. It still feels like a different planet to most of us now, just like it did when Swift described it.
Or visit the beautiful flying island Laputa populated by scientists and musicians, lost in their thoughts, talented but useless, figuring out how to extract sunbeams out of cucumbers. And the ugly slums like Balnibarbi that exist solely to support the beautiful flying island and its geniuses.
(Pic: Ros Kavanagh)
Or maybe Gulliver, overwhelmed and exhausted after facing an ignorant and vicious tribe of Yahoos could just skip all that travelling nonsense and go straight to his happy ending – 300 year old spoiler alert! – living a quiet life at home and looking after horses, as he decides that they are better than humans in every way. ‘‘I enjoyed perfect health of body, and tranquillity of mind; I did not feel the treachery or inconstancy of a friend, nor the injuries of a secret or open enemy.’’
And while waiting for whatever the next reincarnation of the story will be, this summer you can go right to its very beginning – to mark 300 years since publication Marsh’s Library has the novel’s first editions on display, as well its various translations and earliest examples of fan fiction. Safe travels!
The exhibition Gulliver 300 runs till September 2026 at Marsh’s Library, Dublin 8 - find out more here