Synopses & Reviews
Considering that much of his life was spent in poverty and ill health, it is something of a miracle that in only forty-six years George Orwell managed to publish ten books and two collections of essays. Here, in four fat volumes, is the best selection of his non-fiction available, a trove of letters, essays, reviews, and journalism that is breathtaking in its scope and eclectic passions. Orwell had something to say about just about everyone and everything. His letters to such luminaries as Julian Symons, Anthony Powell, Arthur Koestler, and Cyril Connolly are poignant and personal. His essays, covering everything from "English Cooking" to "Literature and Totalitarianism," are memorable, and his books reviews (Hitler's Mein Kampf, Mumford's Herman Melville, Miller's Black Spring, Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield to name just a few) are among the most lucid and intelligent ever written. From 1943 to l945, he wrote a regular column for the Tribune, a left wing weekly, entitled "As I Please." His observations about life in Britain during the war embraced everything from anti-American sentiment to the history of domestic appliances.
Synopsis
"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
George Orwell is without question one of the most important writers of the 20th century. The adjective Orwellian and terms such as doublethink, Big Brother, thought police, memory hole, Newspeak, or unperson, are all due to him, as resonant today as in his time. The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell, in four volumes, is the best selection of his nonfiction available. Written between 1920 and 1950, here is a trove of letters, essays, reviews, and journalism that is breathtaking in its scope, the force of intellect, and eclectic passions. Orwell had something to say about just about everyone and everything. His letters to such luminaries as Julian Symons, Anthony Powell, Arthur Koestler, and Cyril Connolly are poignant and personal. His essays, covering everything from "English Cooking" to "Literature and Totalitarianism," are memorably insightful, and his books reviews (Hitler's Mein Kampf, Mumford's Herman Melville, Miller's Black Spring, Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield, to name just a few) are among the most lucid and intelligent ever written. This is a collection that will expand anyone's understanding of the writer and of the world he so profoundly understood.
Synopsis
"What I have most wanted to do... is to make political writing into an art." --George Orwell
During the post-war years, Orwell published many of his greatest essays, "You and the Atomic Bomb", "Politics and the English Language," "The Prevention of Literature," and "Why I Write." All these, and more, are included here--along with correspondence and other pieces that provide fascinating insight into Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell wrote it while suffering from tuberculous and died in 1950, the year after its publication. This collection of writing, and the preceding three volumes, however, create the astonishing record of an imperishable mind.
Synopsis
Essays, journalism and essays by the brilliant, indispensable George Orwell from 1946 to 1950. Even many decades after his death, the more we read of Orwell, the more clearly we can think about our world and ourselves.
In the years following the end of the Second World War, Orwell published many of his greatest essays: "You and the Atomic Bomb", "Politics and the English Language," "The Prevention of Literature," and "Why I Write." All these, and more, are included here--along with correspondence and other pieces that provide fascinating insight into his dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, newspeak, memory hole--all invented by Orwell to describe the workings of a totalitarian state. Orwell wrote his greatest novel while suffering from tuberculous and he died the year after its publication in 1950. This is collection of writing, however, creates the astonishing record of an imperishable mind.
This fourth 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.