Lemuel Gulliver Lemuel Gulliver Lemuel Gulliver () is the fictional protagonist and narrator of "Gulliver's Travels", a novel written by Jonathan Swift, first published in 1726. According to Swift's novel, Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire c. 1661, where his father had a small estate; the Gulliver family is said to have originated in Oxfordshire, however. He supposedly studied for three years (c. 1675-1678) at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, leaving to become an apprentice to an eminent London surgeon; after four years (c. 1678-1682), he left to study at the University of Leiden, a prominent Dutch university and medical school. He also educated himself
Gulliver's Travels Instead, he is picked up by Don Pedro's crew. Despite Gulliver's appearance—he is dressed in skins and speaks like a horse—Don Pedro treats him compassionately and returns him to Lisbon. Though Don Pedro appears only briefly, he has become an important figure in the debate between so-called soft school and hard school readers of "Gulliver's Travels". Some critics contend that Gulliver is a target of Swift's satire and that Don Pedro represents an ideal of human kindness and generosity. Gulliver believes humans are similar to Yahoos in the sense that they make "no other use of reason, than to improve