Glubbdubdrib (also spelled Glubdubdrib or Glubbdubdribb in some editions) was an island of sorcerers and magicians, one of the imaginary countries visited by Lemuel Gulliver in the 1726 satirical novel Gulliver's Travels by Anglo-Irish author Jonathan Swift. The episode on Glubbdubdrib "explores the theme of humanity's progressive degeneration."
Location
The location of Glubdubdrib is illustrated in both the text and the map at the beginning of part III of Gulliver's Travels, though they are not consistent with each other.
The map shows Glubdubdrib to be southwest of the port of Maldonada on the southwest coast of Luggnagg, while the text states the island is southwest of Balnibarbi, and Maldonada to be a port of that land.
Description
Glubbdubdrib is about one third as large as the Isle of Wight. The inhabitants of Glubbdubdrib can wield magic, and most of their technology is utilized through magical means. The eldest in succession is prince or governor of the island. He has a 'noble' palace, and a park of about three thousand acres, surrounded by a wall of hewn stone twenty foot high.
Further reading
- "Gulliver’s 'Temple of Fame': Glubbdubdrib Revisited" by Dirk Passman, Helgard Stöver-Leidig and Hermann Real, Reading Swift: Papers from The Fourth Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift Ed. Hermann J. Real and Helgard Stöver-Leidig (München, Germany: Wilhelm Sink Verlag, 2003), 329-48.
Notes
References
- Jonathan Swift: Guliver's Travels Oxford World Classics (1986, reprint 2008) introduction by Claude Rawson, explanatory notes by Ian Higgins