Note 90 — LITERARY BLUNDERS.
Reading edition
The first edition had all the external appearance of truth: a portrait of "Captain Lemuel Gulliver, of Redriff, aetat. suæ lviii." faces the title; and maps of all the places, he only, visited, are carefully laid down in connexion with the realities of geography. Thus "Lilliput, discovered A.D. 1699," lies between Sumatra and Van Dieman's Land. "Brobdignag, discovered A.D. 1703," is a peninsula of North America. One Richard Sympson vouches for the veracity of his "antient and intimate friend," in a Preface detailing some "facts" of Gulliver's Life. Arbuthnot says he "lent the book to an old gentleman, who went immediately to his map to search for Lilliput."