BIOGRAPHY

Jonathan 'Isaac Bickerstaff' Swift  (1667-1745)

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland on 30 November 1667, second child

and only son of Jonathan Swift1 and Abigaile Erick Swift. His father was dead

before Jonathan, Junior was born, so the child's education was arranged by other

relatives. Jonathan graduated from Trinity Colege, Dublin, in 16862 and then went

to England to try his luck. He found a job as secretary to Sir William Temple, and it

was in Sir William's household that he met Esther (Stella) Johnson3 and became

her tutor. Now Sir William was an extremely important statesman of the day. He

helped arrange the marriage of future British monarchs William and Mary4. 

Anyway, Jonathan wrote a lot of stuff in between tutoring sessions, but

unfortunately burned most of it. The writing that survives shows signs of the great

satirist he was to become. But when Sir William died in 1699, Jonathan was left

scrambling for a job and eventually ended up with several odd little Church

positions5 back in Ireland6. He became a very fashionable satiric writer as far as

Dublin society was concerned7. 

And now for one of my all-time favorite anecdotes. In the early 1700's, a man

named John Partridge, a cobbler by trade, took up printing almanacs to make some

extra money. He challenged his readers to try their hands at prophecy and see if

they could beat Partridge's own prophetic abilities. Well, Partridge had made some

attacks on the Church of England, and in 1708, Jonathan decided to stand up for

his employer. Using the name Isaac Bickerstaff8, he prophesied "a

trifle...[Partridge] will infallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about eleven at

Night, of a raging fever." At the proper time, using another name, Jonathan

announced the fulfillment of said prophecy9. Partridge, in his next almanac,

protested loudly that he was still alive, but no one believed him. The Stationer's

Register had already removed his name from their rolls, and that was good enough

for most people10. 

Somewhere around 1716, some biographers say he married Stella Johnson, but

there's no proof of this, and you'd think there'd be some sign if he had. Though

they lived near each other for most of their lives, they were always very properly

chaperoned and may very well have never been alone together11. 

Gulliver's Travels was published in 1726, Jonathan's first big dive into prose.

Though it's been pretty solidly labelled a children's book, it's also a great satire of

the times that is pretty much beyond most children. It shows Jonathan's desire to

encourage people to read deeper and not take things for granted: readers who paid

attention could match all of Gulliver's tall tales with current events and long-term

societal problems. In 1729, Jonathan wrote one of my favorites, A Modest

Proposal, supposedly written by an intelligent and objective "political arithmetician"

who had carefully studied Ireland before making his proposal. Most of you

probably know this one. The author calmly suggests one solution for both the

problem of overpopulation and the growing numbers of undernourished people:

breed those children who would otherwise go hungry or be mistreated in order to

feed the general public12. 

Jonathan died on 19 October 1745, aged 78. He hadn't been in a good frame of

mind for some time13. He managed to keep some of his sense of humor,

though--his last will and testament provided funds to establish somewhere around

Dublin a hospital for "ideots & lunaticks" because "No Nation wanted [needed] it so

much."

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This document is part of Incompetech's British Author Series written by

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