Gulliver's Travels

New York: E. P. Dutton, 1909. First US trade edition. Near Fine. An excellent copy of the first US trade edition. Original rust colored cloth elaborately stamped in gilt on the front board and spine. Top-edge stained brown. Illustrated with 12 full page color plates, 2 full page black and white illustrations and 7 chapter headings and tail-pieces by Arthur Rackham.

"Gulliver's Travels has given Swift an immortality beyond temporary fame...All those who had been fascinated by the realism and vivid detail of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe were captivated again, even though they knew that Gulliver must be fiction. The brilliance and thoroughness with which his logic and invention work out the piquancies of scale involved by the giant human among the Lilliputians, and then by a minikin Gulliver among the Brobdingnagians, ran away with the author's original intention. Gulliver's Travels has achieved the final apotheosis of a satirical fable, but it has also become a tale for children. For every edition designed for the reader with an eye to the historical background, twenty have appeared, abridged or adapted, for readers who care nothing for the satire and enjoy it as a first-class story" (Printing and the Mind of Man). Here, the narrative is brought to life with Rackham's exceptional illustrations, which highlight the humor as well as the darkness twisting through Swift's work. Near Fine.