Armagh Robinson Library is the venue for one of the first lectures to be given this autumn to highlight the three hundredth anniversary of the publication of Jonathan Swift’s work ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. Guest speaker, Hester Grant, will give the lecture, titled ‘Gulliver Amongst Friends’ on Wednesday 21 October 2026 at 7.30pm.

In March 1726 Jonathan Swift travelled from Dublin to London with the manuscript of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ in his baggage. He spent the summer with his close friends Alexander Pope and John Gay, at Pope’s villa on the Thames at Twickenham, wandering through Pope’s beautiful garden and grotto, boating downriver to visit newly built Marble Hill, and plotting the clandestine publication of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’.

Hester Grant is a writer specialising in the eighteenth century. Her first book ‘The Good Sharps’, a biography of a remarkable eighteenth-century family, was published by Chatto & Windus in 2020. Hester’s second book, ‘The Twitnam Summer’, published by Harper Collins, was launched earlier this year to coincide with ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ special anniversary.

Speaking ahead of her lecture, Hester said, “I will explain how the intensity of the reunion of the three writers, and stimulation provided by the long-absent Swift, marked a turning point in the careers of Pope and Gay, while ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ received its final amendments. Threaded through this narrative is an account of the writing of Swift’s masterpiece, and the story of its secret publication (necessary on account of its explosive satire) that involved dropping the manuscript at a publisher’s ‘in the dark from a Hackney-coach.”

Keeper of Armagh Robinson Library, the Very Revd Shane Forster, added, “The first edition of Gulliver’s Travels, with Jonathan Swift’s hand-written annotated notes, is definitely one of the most famous items in our collection at Armagh Robinson Library. In this significant year for the book, we are delighted that Hester Grant will be delivering this lecture for us, opening the door to the relationships, context and events around the eighteenth-century publication of this very significant piece of literature.”

Copies of Hester’s publication ‘The Twitnam Summer’ will be available to buy following the lecture at £25.00.

Free admission with prior booking essential via admin@armaghrobinsonlibrary.co.uk or telephone: 028 37523142