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A Modest Proposal
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Gulliver in Lilliput. Lemuel Gulliver, set ashore after a mutiny, regains consciousness and finds himself a prisoner of the Lilliputians. From Gulliver's Travels, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts by Jonathan Swift.
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A Modest Proposal

satiric essay by Swift
Also known as: “A Modest Proposal For Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to their Parents, Or the Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to the Publick”(Show More)
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A Modest Proposal, satiric essay by Jonathan Swift, published in pamphlet form in 1729. Presented in the guise of an economic treatise, the essay proposes that the country ameliorate poverty in Ireland by butchering the children of the Irish poor and selling them as food to wealthy English landlords. Swift’s proposal is a savage comment on England’s legal and economic exploitation of Ireland. The essay is a masterpiece of satire, with a blend of rational...

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