Jonathan Swift

Born in Dublin on November 30, 1667, Jonathan Swift became one of the most famous satirists in English. He studied at Trinity College Dublin, later spent time in England, and built a career as a writer, essayist, and political pamphleteer. His best-known book, Gulliver’s Travels (1726), remains a classic for both its imaginative storytelling and its fierce criticism of society.

Swift wrote with a sharp, often dark sense of humor. In works such as A Tale of a Tub, the Drapier’s Letters, and A Modest Proposal, he attacked corruption, hypocrisy, and indifference to suffering. Even when his writing is playful on the surface, it usually carries real moral anger underneath.

He also served as an Anglican cleric and became Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, a role closely tied to his public life in Ireland. Swift died in Dublin on October 19, 1745, but his writing still feels strikingly alive: funny, unsettling, and unafraid to ask what people are really like when power and self-interest take over.