The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 10: Historical Writings

Jonathan Swift was not merely an observer of early 18th-century politics; he was swimming in its treacherous waters. This volume contains his 'History of the Four Last Years of the Queen,' a furiously intelligent defense of his own political era written in the aftermath of Queen Anne's death, when the Whigs were already rewriting the story of her reign. Swift had intimate access to the Tory administration's inner circle, correspondence with Lord Oxford and Lord Bolingbroke, and a personal stake in how history would judge the government he served. What emerges is neither dry chronology nor simple polemic, but something rarer: a partisan who insists he's writing impartial history, and who has just enough self-awareness to make the reader wonder who's being satirized. The text crackles with the same barbed wit that made 'Gulliver's Travels' devastating, except here the targets were real, powerful, and alive. For readers curious about the real political machinery behind one of England's most unstable reigns, this is an insider's account that refuses to go gentle.