# *Gulliver’s Travels* — Index & summary

> **TL;DR:** Four voyages (**Lilliput → Brobdingnag → Laputa line → Houyhnhnms**); mainstream reading is **satire**; this hub maps **where to grep** and flags **investigation targets**: **Part III Mars satellites**, **scale populations**, **travel-fact paratext**. **Conclusion:** same table of contents serves both **literary** and **redacted-nonfiction** readings.

**Corpus:** `/home/ari/dev/wget/swift/_extract/` (multiple editions; see [index-swift-corpus-and-editions.md](index-swift-corpus-and-editions.md))

**Original title:** *Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Lemuel Gulliver* (1726, London; expanded 1735). Authorship was initially **anonymous**; “Swift” appears on later title pages.

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## One-paragraph summary

A ship’s surgeon, Lemuel Gulliver, narrates **four voyages**: to **Lilliput** (diminutive state), **Brobdingnag** (land of giants), **Laputa/Balnibarbi/Luggnagg/Japan** (floating island of theorists, projectors, immortals, and documentary magic), and the country of the **Houyhnhnms** (rational horses) and **Yahoos** (bestial humans). The narrative repeatedly inverts European pride—scale, science, war, law, and “reason”—so the book is almost universally read as **satire and allegory**. For this investigation, the same text is also scanned for **non-metaphorical residue**: astronomical claims (Mars), physical scale (pygmy and giant human populations), and framing devices that present the book as **travel fact** rather than as a genre label “novel.”

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## Structural index (four parts)

| Part | Place names (usual) | Investigation tags |
|------|---------------------|--------------------|
| I | **Lilliput** & **Blefuscu** | Micro-scale polity; war over **Big-Endian vs. Little-Endian** eggs; rope-dancing court; maps and measures. |
| II | **Brobdingnag** | Macro-scale humans; Gulliver as toy/exhibit; king’s judgment on European customs. |
| III | **Laputa**, **Balnibarbi**, **Glubbdubdrib**, **Luggnagg**, **Japan** | **Astronomers / Laputa** — Martian satellites passage; **Academy of Lagado** projectors; **immortal struldbrugs**; **Glubbdubdrib** — conjured dead (historical skepticism thread). |
| IV | **Houyhnhnms** / **Yahoos** | Utopian/dystopian flip; Gulliver’s disgust with humanity; “truth-telling” vs. European vice. |

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## Corpus locator — Martian satellites (Part III)

The Laputan astronomers’ claim appears in multiple trees; one representative OCR block (1856 / shared volume ID `39015078565952`):

- File: `_extract/.../39015078565952/00000290.txt` (header shows book page **284** in that edition).

Search keys: `two lesser stars`, `revolve about Mars`, `ten hours`, `twenty-one and a half`.

Full discussion: [swift-mars-giants-publication-stance.md](swift-mars-giants-publication-stance.md).

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## Corpus locator — scale (Parts I–II)

- **Lilliput:** grep `LILLIPUT`, `six inches`, `inch`, `proportion` in Part I page range (edition-dependent). Cover art convention: Gulliver tied by threads — matches **binding/capture** episodes.  
- **Brobdingnag:** grep `BROBDINGNAG`, `giant`, `dwarf` (court dwarf contrasts with Gulliver’s smallness).  

Thematic index for giants/dwarfs and “former ages”: [swift-mars-giants-publication-stance.md](swift-mars-giants-publication-stance.md).

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## Editorial layers in the 1828 OCR bundle

Under `39015078565861/` and surrounding pages in the combined `Gulliver_s_travels_into_several_remote_nations_of_the_world` tree, searches may hit **footnotes** (e.g. “Orrery,” “H.”) and **biographical** commentary on Swift, Arbuthnot, Stella, etc. Treat those as **later reception**, not Swift’s 1726 diction—unless the question is explicitly “how soon readers labeled it fable vs. voyage.”

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## Cross-links

- [Swift hub](page.md)  
- [Mars / giants / publication stance](swift-mars-giants-publication-stance.md)  
- [Mars investigations](/cosmos/mars/investigations/index-mars.md)

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Keywords: #Gullivers #Travels #Gulliver #Summary