Name: Rex Whistler's Gulliver's Travels
Author: Rex Whistler

Ex Carta

The plate supplied with this copy is the map of the ‘Kingdom of Brobdingnag,’ the land of giants encountered in Gulliver’s second voyage. Whistler’s design captures both the mock-seriousness of Swift’s satirical geography and the visual delight of a decorative cartographic plate. The map situates the reader in a topography where relative scale itself is the subject of satire: Gulliver, a diminutive figure, inhabits a world where mountains, rivers, and human habitations are absurdly magnified.

Issued as a decorative print, Rex Whistler’s map offers a playful cartographic interpretation of one of Swift’s satirical realms. Like the text, it toys with scale and perspective, provoking astonishment and wonder.

This limited edition reproduces Rex Whistler’s celebrated engravings for Gulliver’s Travels, first commissioned by the Cresset Press in 1930. The suite of illustrations, noted for their wit and elegance, exemplify Whistler’s gift for combining eighteenth century pastiche with modern surreal playfulness. The present edition, restricted to just 25 sets, is distinguished by the inclusion of an original copperplate used in printing the maps and illustrations.

Rex Whistler (1905–1944) was one of the most brilliant illustrators and muralists of his generation, whose career was cut short by his death in Normandy during the Second World War. He has been described as ‘a serious and permanent artist, unique in vision and unique in expression.’ His engravings for Gulliver’s Travels are cited as being among his finest achievements, as well as of twentieth-century book illustration generally.

This limited edition reproduces Rex Whistler’s celebrated engravings for 

, first commissioned by the Cresset Press in 1930. The suite of illustrations, noted for their wit and elegance, exemplify Whistler’s gift for combining eighteenth-century pastiche with modern surreal playfulness. The present edition, restricted to just 25 sets, is distinguished by the inclusion of an original copperplate used in printing the maps and illustrations.

Rex Whistler (1905–1944) was one of the most brilliant illustrators and muralists of his generation, whose career was cut short by his death in Normandy during the Second World War. He has been described as ‘a serious and permanent artist, unique in vision and unique in expression."

His engravings for Gulliver’s Travels are cited as being among his finest achievements, as well as of twentieth-century book illustration generally. Pauline Baynes (1922–2008), the illustrator closely associated with both Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, cited Whistler as a key influence on her work.

Whistler's reimagined map of the Kingdom of Brobdingnag, discovered by Gulliver in 1703

Title page for the 1930 edition of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels illustrated by Rex Whistler

Illustration of Gulliver and Captain Pritchard

Map of the Kingdoms of Liliput and Blefuscu

Illustration  of Gulliver cutting the anchor cables of the Blefuscudian fleet so that he can drag their warships away

Map of the Kingdom of Brobdingnag and the northwestern coast of America

Map of the country of the Houyhnhnms and the unfinished coastline of South Australia

Comparative map of the islands of Laputa and Balnibarbi

Rex Whistler's original copperplate used in printing the maps and illustrations for this special edition of Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

; one of 25 copies supplied with an original copper printing plate engraved byRex Whistler.