There is no shortage of biographies of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) and it is not difficult to see why. The author of Gulliver’s Travels leaves so many tantalising unsolved mysteries behind. Who was he? The natural son of his first employer and patron Sir William Temple? And, if so, the brother, or uncle, of another of Sir William’s by-blows, Stella – Esther Johnson – whom Swift undoubtedly loved, and saw almost every day for the last 30 years of his life – who may or may not have been his wife? If he never married, why not? Syphilis? Misogyny? Did he sleep with “Vanessa”, his other great love, Esther Vanhomrigh?Then there is the Dean’s paradoxical relationship to Christianity. He appeared to abhor the human race – yet he was kindly to t