Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift garnered fame through the unusual accomplishment of a widely hailed children's novel that was also biting and relentless satire. The author of Gulliver's Travels was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1667 where he lived for 21 years (except for a brief episode where his nurse took him to England before his widowed mother could recover him) before making his way back to England and landing a tutoring job.

Swift later burned much of the writing he did in this time. When he returned to Ireland, he began building his reputation as a satirist. He wrote for several journals, including the Tattler and the Bickerstaff Papers (one of Swift's pen names was Isaac Bickerstaff). He co-founded the Scriblerus Club, a group that would have many of the great thinkers and writers of the day as members.

Swift was also an active member of the church, becoming ordained in the Church of Ireland in 1695 and serving as a dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin from 1713 until 1742. Swift died in 1745 after years of a mental decline that scholars have since associated with Alzheimer's.

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--B. Redman