When I was a kid, fictional books were strictly divided into "boy" and "girl." Boys got tales of swashbuckling adventure: Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers, Ivanhoe. Girls got families and horses: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Little Women, Misty of Chincoteague.
Both boys and girls got Swiss Family Robinson and Gulliver's Travels, maybe because they had both families and swashbuckling.
Although the hero of Jonathan Swift's 1726 satire visits many fantasy countries, including Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan, the bowlderized versions we read invariabley concentrated on Lilliput, the land of the little people, and omitted the parody of nitpicking religion.
The main illustration was invariably Gulliver on the beach, tied by innumerable tiny ropes. It was strangely erotic, with Lilliputians walking all over Gulliver's body (sometimes standing directly on his bulge, as if it was a little hill). It was hard to resist imagining a comparison between a Lilliputian and Gulliver's endowment.
The main illustration was invariably Gulliver on the beach, tied by innumerable tiny ropes. It was strangely erotic, with Lilliputians walking all over Gulliver's body (sometimes standing directly on his bulge, as if it was a little hill). It was hard to resist imagining a comparison between a Lilliputian and Gulliver's endowment.
The 1939 Fleischer animated version popped up on tv occasionally. It stayed in Lilliput, and had Gulliver facilitating a Romeo-and-Juliet style romance.
The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1960) saddled the hapless merchant (played by gay actor Kerwin Mathews, left) with a fiancee who shares in the adventure.
More after the break
The 1977 Gulliver's Travels promised "a happy event for the whole family" by giving Gulliver (Richard Harris, top photo) a girlfriend.
In 1996, the tv movie Gulliver's Travels starred Ted Danson of Cheers (left, reacting to someone standing on his bulge). In the frame story, he is back home, telling his loving wife about his travels.
A modern-day Gulliver (Jack Black) traveled to Lilliput in 2010, facilitated a heterosexual romance there, and then returned home to get a girlfriend of his own.
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