What was the relationship between Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliverss Travels, and his own experience of contemporary Anglo-Irish travel? This new investigation shows how his family history, his politics, his writing life and also his mysterious relationship with two women were both predetermined by and enabled by geography. The Irish Sea made Swift into a restless and necessary traveller capable of living in the space between an imperial England and a colonised Ireland but never fully at home in any one place.

Clive Probyn was appointed Professor of English at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (1982-2009) and is now Emeritus Professor. He is the Founding President of the Samuel Johnson Society of Australia and co-founded the Henry Handel Richardson Society of Australia. In addition he is a member of the advisory board of the Ehrenpreis Center for Swift Studies, Münster.