Gulliver's Travels, first published in 1726, is Jonathan Swift's best known full-length work, and is both a parody of the "travellers' tales" popular at the time and a satire on human nature. Throughout the four stories, ship's surgeon Gulliver travels to distant lands, meets strange new peoples like the diminutive Lilliputians and the gigantic Brobdingnags, defends his ship from a pirate attack, and is marooned on a deserted island.