These extracts from Swift's correspondence have in all cases been taken directly from the print or manuscript original. The references to the Woolley and Williams editions of the correspondence are given purely for the convenience of the reader.

In the case of printed originals, the transcripts follow the original exactly, without, however, preserving the lineation of the body of the letter. In the case of manuscript originals, crossings out have been silently omitted, underlinings have been rendered as italic and the original lineation of the body of the letter (but not of the salutation and the valediction) has been suppressed. However, item 30, Charles Ford's letter to Benjamin Motte of 3 January 1727 and its accompanying list of errata, has been given a more diplomatic treatment in acknowledgement of the great importance of this document for the textual study of Gulliver's Travels. The conventions used in the transcription of item 30 are explained at the end of the transcription. Translations are the editor’s.

• 1. From Swift to Charles Ford, 15 April 1721

• I am now writing a History of my Travells, which will be a large Volume, and gives Account of Countryes hitherto unknown; but they go on slowly for want of Health and Humor.

• (Rothschild 2282/24; Williams, Corr., vol. II, p. 381; Woolley, Corr., vol. II, p. 372)

• 2. From Bolingbroke to Swift, 1 January 1722

• I long to see yr travels, for take it as you will, I do not retract what I said, and will undertake to find in two pages of yr Bagatelles, more good sence, useful knowledg, and true Religion, than you can shew me in the works of nineteen in twenty of ye profound Divines & Philosophers of the age.

• (BL MS Add. 4805, fols. 77–8, extract on fol. 78v;Williams, Corr., vol. II, pp. 415–16; Woolley, Corr., vol. II, p. 408)

• 3. From Esther Vanhomrigh to Swift, June 1722