HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 10444219 Copyright, 1901, BY HENRY HOLT & CO. ROBERT DRUMMOND, PRINTER, NEW YORK. PREFACE. FROM the present selection it has seemed best to exclude Gulliver's Travels and the Journal to Stella. Gulliver probably deserves to be read, as it usually is read, before any of the works included here, but it is already obtainable in many forms. The Journal to Stella likewise should be read by every student of Swift, for the light it throws on Swift's character, of which it gives a more intimate idea than any of his other writings, and even for its style. But, not having been intended for publication, it lies outside Swift's formal prose, if not outside literature, and it can therefore be excluded from this volume, which is limited in space and must first give an idea of Swift's ordinary prose. With these important exceptions the text aims at as fair a representation of Swift's wide range of subjects and style as space will permit. The introduction to Polite Conversation is selected, not only because it includes some of Swift's best irony, but because it is now accessible only in rare editions. All the selections, except the Tale of a Tub, are printed entire. In the introduction and notes, the aim is not to add anything to what is already known about Swift, but to gather into convenient form from sources available to every one such information as is necessary to an intelligent reading of |