Jonathan Swift responded with an attack on the Irish judiciary almost unparalleled in its ferocity, his principal target being the "vile and profligate villain" William Whitshed, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Also during these years, he began writing his masterpiece, "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts, by Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships", better known as "Gulliver's Travels". Much of the material reflects his political experiences of the preceding decade. For instance, the episode in which the giant Gulliver puts out the Lilliputian palace fire by urinating on it can be
The Sign of the Four with a British editor and British contributors. The dinner was also attended by Oscar Wilde, who eventually contributed "The Picture of Dorian Gray" to the July 1890 issue. Doyle discussed what he called this "golden evening" in his 1924 autobiography "Memories and Adventures". The novel first appeared in the February 1890 edition of "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine" as "The Sign of the Four; or The Problem of the Sholtos" (five-word title), appearing in both London and Philadelphia. The British edition of the magazine originally sold for a shilling, and the American for 25 cents. Surviving copies are now worth several thousand