A Tale of a Tub was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, arguably his most difficult satire and perhaps his most masterly.

The Tale is a prose parody divided into sections each delving into the morals and ethics of the English.

Composed between 1694 and 1697, it was eventually published in 1704.
(from wikipedia.org)

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

Swift is remembered for works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704), An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729).

He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry.

He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms.
(from wikipedia.org)