Houyhnhnms are a fictional race of intelligent horses described in the last part of Jonathan Swift's satirical 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels. The name is pronounced either or. Swift apparently intended all words of the Houyhnhnm language to echo the neighing of horses.
Gulliver in discussion with Houyhnhnms (1856 lllustration by J.J. Grandville).
Houyhnhnms driving a herd of Yahoos, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gulliver Taking His Final Leave of the Land of the Houyhnhnms, Sawrey Gilpin, 1769
Gulliver's Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best-known full-length work and a classic of English literature. Swift claimed that he wrote Gulliver's Travels "to vex the world rather than divert it".
First edition of Gulliver's Travels
Mural depicting Gulliver surrounded by citizens of Lilliput
Gulliver exhibited to the Brobdingnag Farmer (painting by Richard Redgrave)
Gulliver discovers Laputa, the floating/flying island (illustration by J. J. Grandville)
