Defoe vs Swift: One Was Pilloried, One Was Anonymous
DANIEL DEFOE vs JONATHAN SWIFT go head to head — and every jab is rooted in real history.
I gave England Robinson Crusoe and honest reportage, Jonathan, while you hid behind masks and pen-names too cowardly to sign.
I hid, Daniel, because the truth is best served with a blade you don't see coming; a 'Modest Proposal' to eat Irish babies taught more in ten pages than your ledgers did in ten volumes.
And who wept when you jested? I stood in the pillory for my pamphlets and the crowd threw flowers, not stones, because the common man knew I wrote for him.
The common man forgets by supper, Daniel; I wrote for the ages, and Gulliver still sails while your Crusoe only ever escaped one island.
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