If Swift cannot be credited with being a careful proof-reader, nor, like his friend Pope, a sedulous reviser, he took more trouble with his writings, on occasion, than is supposed. Unfortunately Gulliver's Travels, the best known to the general reader of all his works, was left to the arbitrary handling of a London bookseller. When the printed work, unseen beforehand, reached Swift, he was moved to protest against liberties which had been taken with his manuscript. In despite, however, the book has, for generations, been read by many in a text marred by unauthorised perversions.

It is less than thirty years since the first close and searching investigation of the textual problem of Gulliver's Travels appeared. Conclusions then reached have been called in question; and a further examination is now justified.

I am grateful to Lord Rothschild for permission to make full use of the 1727—32 Pope and Swift Miscellanies in his possession. These volumes contain many corrections in Swift's hand. The adoption of these corrections by Faulkner, the Dublin bookseller, in his editions of Swift's poems and miscellaneous writings, lends authority, as I have striven to show, to his revised text of Gulliver's Travels.