Swift published his work 'to vex the world rather than to divert it'.

This incisive satire has never lost its sting - whether the work of an embittered mind or a profound comment on the Age of Reason and Nature, (here is all the fascination of distorting mirrors in Swift's accounts of Lilliput and Brogdingnag, and far more than mere spleen in the way he lashes human passions and institutions.

ROBERT HARDY'S career spans a number of acclaimed film and television productions, including All Creatures Great and Small, Northanger Abbey, Demons of the Mind and The Gathering Storm. He also appeared in the award-winning 1996 film adaptation of Gulliver's Travels.