A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests in his essay that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. By doing this he mocks the authority of the British officials.

Best known as the author of 'Gulliver's Travels', Jonathan Swift is one of literature's great satirists. Born and educated in Ireland, Swift became a politician and clergyman in England, where he wrote essays, pamphlets, poems, and fiction that addressed the political issues and social conditions of his time. In 'Gulliver's Travels', he introduced the allegorical settings of Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the island of the Houyhnhnms, as well as the term "yahoos" in a playful, but dark, satirical reflection of humankind.

This addition to the Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations series focuses on Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Gathered here is a collection of well-respected critical essays on the text, discussing topics such as the philosophical background of the work, satire, and more.

Tom Swift & His Motor Boat

Besides entering some terrific races with his boat, Tom has a fantastic encounter with an aeronaut, in a reissue of an adventure first published more than eighty years ago.

Tom Swift and His Repelatron Skyway

From the very moment that Tom Swift Jr. agrees to help the government of Ngombia build a highway to link the jungle-separated provinces of the new African nation ñ a task that has stumped the best engineers in the United States ñ he is beset by mysterious attacks aimed to defeat the project.
Construction of the road is urgent. At stake is the economic future of this friendly country. But no conventional highway will do. For existing engineering methods can not be used to bridge the seething, bubbling swamp in the rain forest.