While leading his congregation at St. Patrick's, Swift began to write what would become his best-known work. In 1726, at last finished with the manuscript, he traveled to London and benefited from the help of several friends, who anonymously published it as Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships—also known, more simply, as Gulliver's Travels. The book was an immediate success, and hasn't been out of print since its first run. Interestingly, much of the storyline points to historical events that Swift had lived through years prior, during intense political turmoil.