A Tale of a Tub

Jonathan Swift · 1667–1745 · Ireland

Why it matters

A wild, digressive assault on religious extremism and pedantic scholarship, narrated by a hack writer who can't stop interrupting himself. Swift called it his most ingenious work: a warm-up for Gulliver's more famous, more disciplined rage.

At a glance

Willfully digressive, footnote-mad prose parodying scholarship itself.