XVI
SWIFT[1]
Jonathan Swift is one of the four greatest writers of England (Shakespeare and Carlyle are of the same company: the reader may choose the fourth to suit himself).
Gulliver’s Travels is one of those few books, pleasant or unpleasant, light or profound, which may be read and reread at all ages, even when other books have been exhausted and laid aside.
Upon the basis of these axiomatic premises, we must necessarily thank the translator and the publisher who have brought out a new Italian edition of Swift’s masterpiece. The volume is none too elegant, but it is not repulsive; the translation is by no means perfect (I suspect that it is not based directly on the English text), but it is at least complete, or nearly complete. Italian publishers have usually printed only the first two of the four parts of the Travels, since the first two are the parts that are popular among children, amusement seekers, and super-
- ↑ Written à propos of A. Valori’s version of Gulliver’s Travels: I viaggi di Gulliver, Genoa, 1913.
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