Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jonathan Swift was born on the 30th of November 1667 in Dublin and died on the 19th of October 1745. He spent his life navigating the margins of society and died after suffering from a progressive illness that left him unable to speak.
Esther Johnson, known as Stella, was a girl Jonathan Swift met at the age of twenty when she was only eight years old. They maintained a close, ambiguous connection for decades, and Swift composed prayers for her comfort when she died on the 28th of January 1728.
Jonathan Swift launched the Drapier's Letters campaign in 1724 to oppose a government plan to mint copper coinage for Ireland. The campaign forced the government to rescind the patent in September 1725 and established Swift as an Irish patriot.
Jonathan Swift published A Modest Proposal in 1729 to force readers to confront the reality of Irish poverty and the indifference of the British government. The satire recommended that Ireland's poor escape their poverty by selling their children as food to the rich.
Jonathan Swift published Gulliver's Travels in 1726, and it had three printings in the year of its publication and another in early 1727. The novel is a satire of human nature based on Swift's experience of his times and has been translated into French, German, and Dutch.
Jonathan Swift suffered from a progressive illness that left him unable to speak and eventually led to his death on the 19th of October 1745. He began to show signs of illness in 1738 and was declared of unsound mind and memory by 1742.