Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin to English parents, a few months after his father died. He studied at Trinity College Dublin and worked for years as secretary to an English statesman, Sir William Temple, before becoming a clergyman.

He wrote pamphlets for the Tory government in London, and later, as Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, fought for the Irish poor in fierce and comic satires such as A Modest Proposal. Gulliver's Travels came out without his name in 1726 and was read everywhere at once. He left most of his money to found a hospital for the mentally ill.