On A Shadow In A Glass

Jonathan Swift wrote some of the most biting satire in the English language, and whatever bears his name here carries that same razor edge. Known for Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal, Swift was the foremost prose satirist in the English language, a clergyman who used his position to skewer the foolishness, cruelty, and hypocrisy of his age. His poetry, often overlooked, reveals the same dark wit and technical mastery. This work, whatever its specific concerns, offers the pleasures of Swift's singular voice: precision, irony, and a contempt for affectation delivered with absolute composure. Expect no gentle mockery here. Swift stabbed at the heart of his targets with the calm deliberation of a surgeon, and his words still draw blood three centuries later. For readers who appreciate prose that thinks as much as it entertains, that refuses to look away from uncomfortable truths, this is Swift doing what he did better than anyone else.