In 1708, writing as the astrologer Isaac Bickerstaff, Swift published predictions for the coming year, beginning with the death of the popular almanac-maker John Partridge on 29 March. He followed it with an account of the prediction fulfilled and an elegy and epitaph, and when Partridge protested that he was alive, a solemn vindication proving that he was not.
One of the great practical jokes of English literature, still funny three centuries on. Download the free EPUB.