300 years of Gulliver’s Travels Celebrated in New Exhibition
The Lilliputian army marching beneath Gulliver in Florence Dugdale’s Gulliver’s Travels Told in Simple Language (1912)
The 300th anniversary of the publication of Gulliver’s Travels is being celebrated in Trinity College Dublin with an exhibition in the Long Room of the Old Library charting the book's journey.
Written in Ireland and published anonymously in London on October 28, 1726, it was originally titled Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships. Swift’s satire became a global literary phenomenon that has never been out of print. Drawing on the Library of Trinity College Dublin’s extensive collection of editions of Gulliver’s Travels, the Gulliver at 300 exhibition also has an accompanying online exhibition.
“The exhibition reveals how Swift’s often biting satire has been reprinted, retold and celebrated in many forms across 300 years," said Stephanie Breen, Assistant Librarian and co-curator of the exhibition. "Exhibits range from some of the earliest editions to modern pop-up and comic books, and from cheap ephemeral booklets to lavish deluxe editions. The display also includes the only known surviving copy of a small abridgement, The Travels of Lemuel Gulliver, printed in Dublin in 1761."
Aileen Douglas, Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies, School of English, and co-curator of the exhibition, added: “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. 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.”
Born in Dublin, Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) first entered Trinity College Dublin in 1682 as an undergraduate student and in 1702 took the degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Gulliver at 300 runs until the end of December 2026.
