This collection of essays begins with a reassessment of Swift s Gulliver s Travels, in particular addressing the universal formative impact it keeps exerting on the myth of utopia (N. Frye) and the ramifications it displays in contemporary exemplars of utopian/dystopian fiction The Handmaid s Tale, Canadian author Margaret Atwood s world success, being a most significant case in point. John Fowles, within an overview of his works, is dealt with to point out the quest-/quester-motif as an informing element, which itself forms part of the myth of the picaresque as the...