Publisher's Synopsis
About the Series "Swift's Notable Works"VOLUME 1. A Tale of a Tub (With Illustrations from the 1710 ed. ( Woodcuts /. Wotton) and 1811 ed. (London, Pub by T. Tegg)VOLUME 2. Gulliver's travels into several remote nations of the World (Illustrated by Arthur Rackham) VOLUME 3. A Modest Proposal / Drapier's Letters (Annotated By Swift by Leslie Stephen)A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. The essay suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocked heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as British policy toward the Irish in general.Drapier's Letters is the collective name for a series of seven pamphlets written between 1724 and 1725 by the Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Jonathan Swift, to arouse public opinion in Ireland against the imposition of a privately minted copper coinage that Swift believed to be of inferior quality. William Wood was granted letters patent to mint the coin, and Swift saw the licensing of the patent as corrupt. In response, Swift represented Ireland as constitutionally and financially independent of Britain in the Drapier's Letters. Since the subject was politically sensitive, Swift wrote under the pseudonym M. B., Drapier, to hide from retaliation.Although the letters were condemned by the Irish government, with prompting from the British government, they were still able to inspire popular sentiment against Wood and his patent. The popular sentiment turned into a nationwide boycott, which forced the patent to be withdrawn; Swift was later honoured for this service to the people of Ireland. Many Irish people recognised Swift as a hero for his defiance of British control over the Irish nation. Beyond being a hero, many critics have seen Swift, through the persona of the Drapier, as the first to organise a "more universal Irish community," although it is disputed as to who constitutes that community. Regardless of to whom Swift is actually appealing what he may or may not have done, the nickname provided by Archbishop King, "Our Irish Copper-Farthen Dean," and his connection to ending the controversy stuck.Sir Leslie Stephen, KCB, FBA (28 November 1832 - 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, and mountaineer, and father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.
