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The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell Paperback – March 8, 2004
Essays, journalism and essays by the brilliant, indispensable George Orwell from 1943 to 1945. Even many decades after his death, the more we read of Orwell, the more clearly we can think about our world and ourselves. During the Second World War, George Orwell was rejected for service and so became the literary editor, reviewer, and frequent columnist of the left-wing weekly, Tribune . “What I have most wanted to do,” Orwell said, “is to make political writing into an art.” And there is ample proof here that he achieve his ambition. Included in this volume are reviews of works by authors as varied as C. S. Lewis and Arthur Koestler, the newspaper column, “As I Please,” and the brilliant essay, “A Nice Cup of Tea.” Also included are letters to T. S. Eliot, among others, while trying to convince publishers to take a chance on a book called Animal Farm . This third volume of the Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters by George Orwell will be enjoyed by anyone who believes that words can go a long way toward changing the world.
- Print length 435 pages
- Language English
- Publisher David R. Godine, Publisher
- Publication date March 8, 2004
- Dimensions 5.84 x 1.17 x 8.32 inches
- ISBN-10 1567921353
- ISBN-13 978-1567921359
- See all details
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From the Publisher
The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell
“The nearest thing to Orwell’s testament is sprawling rather than compact, the four-volume Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters . Coedited by Ian Angus and Sonia Orwell, George Orwell’s widow, it includes nearly all his nonfiction from 1920 to 1950….The set was first published fifty years ago and was reissued last year in a commendable act of literary citizenship by David R. Godine, Inc., a small, semi-legendary Boston publisher. The four volumes are a very rich harvest. All the great essays are here: ‘Why I Write,’ ‘My Country Right or Left,’ ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War,’ ‘Notes on Nationalism,’ ‘The Prevention of Literature,’ ‘Politics and the English Language,’ ‘Writers and Leviathan,’ the essays on Dickens, Tolstoy, Kipling, Henry Miller, P. G. Wodehouse, and more."— Commonweal Magazine
"What I have most wanted to do… is to make political writing into an art."
Editorial reviews, from library journal.
“It is an astonishing tribute to Orwell's gifts as a natural, unaffected writer that, although the historical events he is unfolding are all too bitterly familiar, the reader turns the page as though he did not know what was going to happen. Here, then, is a social, literary, and political history... which, while being intensely personal, never forgets its allegiance to objective truth.” ― The Economist
“These four volumes might be the perfect tonic for what ails our society.”― America Magazine
“While Orwell is best known for Animal Farm and 1984 , most of his writing derived from his tireless work as a journalist, and thanks to this welcome reissue of The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell , which has been out of print for a decade, readers can find it all in one place. All of the author’s insightful, hard-hitting essays and journalistic pieces are here…the most complete picture of the writer and man possible.”― Kirkus Reviews
From the Back Cover
About the author.
Sonia Brownell Orwell , as a young woman, was responsible for transcribing and editing the copy text for the first edition of the Winchester Malory as assistant to the eminent medievalist at Manchester University, Eugene Vinaver. Brownell first met Orwell when she worked as the assistant to Cyril Connolly, a friend of his from Eton College, at the literary magazine Horizon . The two were married in October 1949, only three months before Orwell’s death from tuberculosis.
Ian Angus , a widely recognized Orwell scholar for decades, helped establish the Orwell Archive at University College, London and, in 1968, worked with Sonia Orwell in editing Orwell's Collected Journalism, Essays and Letters published by Secker & Warburg in England.
Product details
- Publisher : David R. Godine, Publisher (March 8, 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 435 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1567921353
- ISBN-13 : 978-1567921359
- Item Weight : 1.15 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.84 x 1.17 x 8.32 inches
- #575 in Literary Letters
- #2,900 in Essays (Books)
- #4,240 in Author Biographies
About the author
George orwell.
George Orwell is one of England's most famous writers and social commentators. Among his works are the classic political satire Animal Farm and the dystopian nightmare vision Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell was also a prolific essayist, and it is for these works that he was perhaps best known during his lifetime. They include Why I Write and Politics and the English Language. His writing is at once insightful, poignant and entertaining, and continues to be read widely all over the world.
Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). Several years of poverty followed. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as a private tutor, schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles to a number of periodicals. Down and Out in Paris and London was published in 1933. In 1936 he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) is a powerful description of the poverty he saw there.
At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and was wounded. Homage to Catalonia is his account of the civil war. He was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco and there wrote Coming Up for Air. During the Second World War he served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC Eastern Service from 1941 to 1943. As literary editor of the Tribune he contributed a regular page of political and literary commentary, and he also wrote for the Observer and later for the Manchester Evening News. His unique political allegory, Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame.
It was around this time that Orwell's unique political allegory Animal Farm (1945) was published. The novel is recognised as a classic of modern political satire and is simultaneously an engaging story and convincing allegory. It was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which finally brought him world-wide fame. Nineteen Eighty-Four's ominous depiction of a repressive, totalitarian regime shocked contemporary readers, but ensures that the book remains perhaps the preeminent dystopian novel of modern literature.
Orwell's fiercely moral writing has consistently struck a chord with each passing generation. The intense honesty and insight of his essays and non-fiction made Orwell one of the foremost social commentators of his age. Added to this, his ability to construct elaborately imaginative fictional worlds, which he imbued with this acute sense of morality, has undoubtedly assured his contemporary and future relevance.
George Orwell died in London in January 1950.
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