Best-Loved Swift

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), was the author of Gulliver's Travels, one of the world's greatest satirical fantasies. He was Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin from 1713-1745.

John Wyse Jackson was born in Kilkenny in 1953, and educated in Dublin. His previous works on Oscar Wilde are Aristotle at Afternoon Tea: the Rare Oscar Wilde and Wilde about St Louis, an account of Oscar’s two days in the American city in 1882. Other books, either solo or in collaboration, include Myles Before Myles: a Selection of the Earlier Writings of Flann O’Brien, James Joyce's Dubliners: An Annotated and Illustrated Edition, Phenolphthalein: A Fictional Quest for the Eighth Plot, John Stanislaus Joyce: The Life of James Joyce’s Father, Flann O’Brien at War, We All Want to Change the World: A Life of John Lennon, Dublin: Poetry of Place and, with the Ulster artist Hector McDonnell, Ireland’s Other Poetry: Anonymous to Zozimus, Ulster’s Other Poetry and Dublin’s Other Poetry.

An occasional contributor to the Sunday Times, New Statesman, Spectator etc., and to numerous Irish publications, John has written, lectured and broadcast on various matters in Ireland, Britain and the United States. For many years he was joint owner/manager of John Sandoe’s Bookshop in Chelsea, London, before returning to Ireland in 2003 with his wife, Ruth, and their children. Currently he is generally to be found in Zozimus Bookshop (www.zozimusbookshop.com), with a large secondhand and antiquarian stock at 86 Main Street, Gorey, County Wexford, where he hosts a regular Ulysses study group and publishes the occasional book, usually of local interest.