In addition to ensuring broad coverage of Jonathan Swift's writing by including early, as well as more well-known later works, this Companion offers access to current critical and theoretical issues concerning the author. Special emphasis is placed on Swift's problematic relationship with the land of his birth, Ireland, and on his place as a political writer in a highly politicized age. "It is good to recover the complexity of Swift's attitude toward language and style, his penchant for verbal extremism and violence, and his exploitation of ambiguity and instability . . ." Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 "Although commentary on Swift is copious, few recent works are aimed at the beginner, so this volume should be welcome to many." Choice "The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift is an excellent introduction to Swift and Swift studies that not only offers reliable information about the man, his life, and his works, but also deftly reveals the enduring issues that continue to preoccupy Swift's readers." - Eighteenth Century Fiction, J.A. Downie, Goldsmiths College, London This 2003 Companion explores crucial dimensions of Swift's life and works. Christopher Fox is Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He is the author of Locke and the Scriblerians: Identity and Consciousness in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain.