A modest proposal

By Jonathan Swift

Published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729, A Modest Proposal is a satirical essay. It suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. Widely held to be one of the greatest examples of sustained irony in the history of the English language, this essay astonished audience at the time of publication. Swift goes to great lengths to support his argument, including a list of possible preparation styles for the children, and calculations showing the financial benefits of his suggestion. He attacks projects that tried to fix population and labour issues with a simple cure-all solution. This work is a paradox that forces the reader to question himself about the human condition and the differences between social classes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Synapse Publishing
• Release date: Mar 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9788832546095

Jonathan Swift

Born in 1667, Jonathan Swift was an Irish writer and cleric, best known for his works Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal, and A Journal to Stella, amongst many others. Educated at Trinity College in Dublin, Swift received his Doctor of Divinity in February 1702, and eventually became Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Publishing under the names of Lemeul Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, and M. B. Drapier, Swift was a prolific writer who, in addition to his prose works, composed poetry, essays, and political pamphlets for both the Whigs and the Tories, and is considered to be one of the foremost English-language satirists, mastering both the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. Swift died in 1745, leaving the bulk of his fortune to found St. Patrick’s Hospital for Imbeciles, a hospital for the mentally ill, which continues to operate as a psychiatric hospital today.