Extract

I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

A ship's surgeon washes ashore among people six inches tall and discovers that their petty wars and political intrigues are indistinguishable from those of the empire he left behind. Published in 1726, each of Gulliver's four voyages strips away another layer of human self-regard: the Lilliputians expose political vanity, the giants reveal physical disgust, the floating island mocks abstract learning, and the rational horses suggest that humanity may be the least reasonable species alive. The prose is plain and deadpan, which makes the horror land harder. Written not to reform mankind but to vex the world, and two centuries later the vexation has lost none of its sting.