The Battle of the Books — Index stub

TL;DR: 1704 mock-epic Ancients vs. Moderns—meta-literary background for Swift’s later Royal Society / projector mockery in Gulliver Part III; no Mars or voyage content here.

In local corpus: Yes — Select Works vol. I, 1823. Page headers: grep THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS under /home/ari/dev/wget/swift/_extract/The_select_works_of_Jonathan_Swift_containing_the_whole_of/.

Published: 1704 (with Tale of a Tub). Mock-epic set in St James’s Library: Ancient vs Modern authors fight; Bee vs Spider digression (nature of wit and borrowing).

Summary (one paragraph): Swift stages a literary war between classical and “modern” writers, siding with the ancients in spirit while ridiculing pedantry on both sides. It is a meta-literary satire—useful background for how Swift treats Royal Society-style learning in Gulliver Part III, but it does not address Mars or scale voyages directly.

Deeper corpus/edition notes: index-swift-select-works-vol1-1823.md | Swift hub

Keywords: #Battle #Books #Stub