300 years of Gulliver's Travels marked in display at TCD

Updated / Wednesday, 28 Oct 2026 08:22

More than 100 versions of Gulliver's Travels are on display in Trinity College Dublin to celebrate 300 years since the book's first publication.

The satire was written by Dublin-born Jonathan Swift, a Trinity graduate, initially published anonymously in London on 28 October 1726 and has never been out of print.

'Gulliver at 300' presents different editions, adaptations and interpretations of Lemuel Gulliver's voyages, including a 1761 Dublin-printed edition, which is the only known surviving copy of that abridgement.

"We have hundreds of editions and popularisations of Gulliver's Travels in the collection... from the 1726 edition, right up to the 21st Century. We showcase the work of the printers, engravers and illustrators who have responded to Gulliver's Travels over the last 300 years," said Stephanie Breen, Assistant Librarian and co-curator of the exhibition.

The curators went through and discussed all of the copies in Trinity's possession before deciding which ones to display in Trinity's Long Room.

"It was like being in a sweet shop. We had all these hundreds of copies of Gulliver's Travels spread out around us," said Aileen Douglas, Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at Trinity College's School of English and another co-curator.

"So we decided one way to present the exhibition would be to tell the story of Gulliver's Travels through the four parts but we also wanted to show the range of the illustrated versions, the different forms the book has taken. That motivated us, we wanted variety," she said.

The book of four parts follows Lemuel Gulliver as he travels to strange lands and encounters unusual inhabitants including the fictional island of Lilliput.

It was an instant success with translations in different languages quickly following the first editions.

It was the themes and style of writing that made it relevant to different generations, Prof Douglas said.

"The first readers of Gulliver's Travels were very taken with its satire of prominent political figures and the machinations of power. For readers today, fearful of being displaced by AI, Swift’s profound satire of human nature, especially pride in rationality and progress, resonates strongly," she said.

"A further reason Gulliver’s Travels continues to speak to readers today is its powerful representation of a protagonist forced to adjust, not always successfully, to strange, alien, societies."

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