A Tale of a Tub
Robert Hendrickson notes in his book "British Literary Anecdotes" that "Swift was always partial to his strikingly original "The Tale of a Tub" (1704). On reading the work again in later years, he exclaimed 'Good God! What a genius I had when I wrote that book!'"
William Gilbert (author)
In 1859, Gilbert published a novel, "Margaret Meadows, A Tale for the Pharisees". This was made into a play called "Mary Warner" by Tom Taylor in 1869, who was forced to pay Gilbert a settlement for plagiarising his novel. Gilbert's most successful early novel was "Shirley Hall Asylum: Or the Memoirs of a Monomaniac" (1863), which told the stories of inmates of a lunatic asylum from the point of view of an escapee driven mad by trying to solve the problem of perpetual motion. Gilbert's first novel published under his own name was "Christmas Tale: The Rosary, a Legend of Wilton Abbey" (1863). The story purports to be the written confession of one Alicia Longspée, who had been Lady Abbess of the Benedictine Convent at Wilton in the 15th century. Gilbert's next novel, "De Profundis, a tale of the social deposits" (1864) is the story of a foundling rescued by a Scottish Fusilier Guardsman stationed in London. The foundling grows up to marry the guardsman's daughter. Another 1864 book was "The Goldsworthy Family, or the country attorney", about an unethical lawyer.