# *The Battle of the Books* — Index stub

> **TL;DR:** **1704** mock-epic **Ancients vs. Moderns**—meta-literary background for Swift’s later **Royal Society / projector** mockery in *Gulliver* **Part III**; **no** Mars or voyage content here.

**In local corpus:** Yes — *Select Works* vol. I, 1823. Page headers: grep `THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS` under `/home/ari/dev/wget/swift/_extract/The_select_works_of_Jonathan_Swift_containing_the_whole_of/`.

**Published:** 1704 (with *Tale of a Tub*). **Mock-epic** set in St James’s Library: **Ancient vs Modern** authors fight; **Bee vs Spider** digression (nature of wit and borrowing).

**Summary (one paragraph):** Swift stages a **literary war** between classical and “modern” writers, siding with the ancients in spirit while ridiculing **pedantry** on both sides. It is a **meta-literary** satire—useful background for how Swift treats **Royal Society**-style learning in *Gulliver* Part III, but it does not address Mars or scale voyages directly.

**Deeper corpus/edition notes:** [index-swift-select-works-vol1-1823.md](index-swift-select-works-vol1-1823.md) | [Swift hub](page.md)

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Keywords: #Battle #Books #Stub