Jonathan Swift 2 hr 58 min read

Captain Gulliver voyages on to the flying island of Laputa, the mad academy of Balnibarbi, the ghost-summoning Glubbdubdrib, and the immortal Struldbrugs of Luggnagg.

This is a 1727 French translation (volume two) of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Sharp, fantastical, immortal. Read it for the third voyage of the immortal satire, Laputa's floating island, its useless projectors, and the horror of undying old age, a savage, brilliant send-up of intellectual folly that stands as a foundational classic of imaginative fiction, here in French.

In its time

Published in 1726, during the Pre-1800, voyages to the moon, subterranean worlds, and philosophical utopias, the deep roots of the imaginative tradition, from kepler and cyrano to the enlightenment.

Reading it

2 hr 58 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).