The Twitnam Summer review — Swift, Gay and Pope’s season in the sun

In 1726 Jonathan Swift crossed the Irish Sea with the manuscript of Gulliver’s Travels. Beneath its child-friendly chatter about a sailor marooned among tiny Lilliputians, the book was a scabrous satire on the corruption of public life under the politically ascendant Whigs.

Swift’s ultimate destination was Twickenham—“Twitnam”—the suburban home of Alexander Pope, where he planned a scheme for anonymous publication to avoid legal trouble; in Pope he found a sympathetic co‑conspirator and a fellow member of the Scriblerus Club. John Gay, author of The Beggar’s Opera, completes the trio.

His musical comedy was a savage takedown of Robert Walpole and the Whigs, yet Gay otherwise kept his invective to his writing. He was a sunshiny soul who liked a drink, was hopeless with money and often scrounged a bed for the night; in the summer of 1726 he lodged at Pope’s villa, complete with an underground grotto of flints, shells and glittering glass.

jonathan swift, gulliver's travels, twickenham, alexander pope, john gay, beggar's opera, robert walpole, whigs, scriblerus club, twitnam