SWIFT, Jonathan - DESFONTAINES, Pierre-François Guyot (imit.)

£500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Le Nouveau Gulliver, First edition of Desfontaines's imitation of Gulliver's Travels, preceding the Amsterdam edition of the same year. Pierre Desfontaines's unauthorised sequel followed on the success of his translation of Gulliver's Travels (published in 1727, the first Paris edition of Swift's work). The Nouveau Gulliver's title pages' spuriously claim that it was "traduit d'un manuscrit anglois". However, the preface states that Le Nouveau Gulliver is not a continuation of Swift's Gulliver, "ce n'est ni le même Voïageur, ni le même genre d'avantures, ni le même goût d'allegorie. La seule conformité est dans nom de Gulliver". Ironically enough Le Nouveau Gulliver was translated into English by J. Lockman the following year, as The Travels of Mr. John Gulliver, Son to Capt. Lemuel Gulliver.

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