Backgrounds includes correspondence between Swift and members of his circle and observations by his contemporaries.
Criticism offers evaluations by Norman O. Brown, Samuel Holt Monk, Allan Bloom, Nigel Dennis, Edward W. Rosenheim, Jr., A. E. Dyson, William Frost, C. J. Rawson, Kathleen Williams, Martin Price, Robert M. Adams, and Jay Arnold Levine.
An Annotated Bibliography guides the reader to important works for further study.