Animal Farm

Animal Farm & 1984

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

As ferociously fresh as it was more than a half century ago, this remarkable allegory of a downtrodden society of overworked, mistreated animals, and their quest to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality is one of the most scathing satires ever published. As we witness the rise and bloody fall of the revolutionary animals, we begin to recognize the seeds of totalitarianism in the most idealistic organization; and in our most charismatic leaders, the souls of our cruelest oppressors.
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Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays

Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist. From his earliest published article in 1928 to his untimely death in 1950, he produced an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflectedas it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent."Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell's development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites classics such as "Shooting an Elephant" with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell's boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these narrative essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex. Contents: The Spike Clink A Hanging Shooting an Elephant Bookshop Memories Marrakech My Country Right or Left War-time Diary England Your England Dear Doktor Goebbels - Your British Friends Are Feeding Fine! Looking Back on the Spanish War As I Please, 1 As I Please, 2 As I Please, 3 As I Please, 16 Revenge Is Sour The Case for the Open Fire The Sporting Spirit In Defence of English Cooking A Nice Cup of Tea The Moon Under Water In Front of Your Nose Some Thoughts on the Common Toad A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray Why I Write How the Poor Die Such, Such Were the Joys
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The Complete Novels of George Orwell

The Complete Novels of George Orwell

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

George Orwell's best-known novels, *Animal Farm*, describing a revolution that goes horribly wrong, and *Nineteen Eighty-Four*, portraying a world where human freedom has been crushed, are two of the most famous, well-quoted and influential political satires ever written. The other novels in this volume also tell stories of people at odds with repressive institutions: the corrupt imperialism of *Burmese Days*, disaffection with materialistic society in *Keep the Aspidistra Flying*, the perils of modern suburban living in *Coming Up for Air *and surviving on the streets in *A Clergyman's Daughter*. All the novels brought together here display Orwell's humour, his understanding of human nature and his great compassion.
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Why I Write

Why I Write

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

Whether puncturing the lies of politicians, wittily dissecting the English character or telling unpalatable truths about war, Orwell's timeless, uncompromising essays are more relevant, entertaining and essential than ever in today's era of spin.
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Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

In this chronicle of his experiences as a militiaman in the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell brings to bear all the force of his humanity, passion and clarity, describing with bitter intensity the bright hopes and cynical betrayals of that chaotic and brutal episode in European history.
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Down and Out in Paris and London

Down and Out in Paris and London

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

This unusual fictional account - in good part autobiographical - narrates without self-pity and often with humor the adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-out of two great cities. The Parisian episode is fascinating for its expose of the kitchens of posh French restaurants, where the narrator works at the bottom of the culinary echelon as dishwasher, or plongeur. In London, while waiting for a job, he experiences the world of tramps, street people, and free lodging houses. In the tales of both cities we learn some sobering Orwellian truths about poverty and society.
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Decline of the English Murder

Decline of the English Murder

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

In these timeless and witty essays George Orwell explores the English love of reading about a good murder in the papers (and lament the passing of the heyday of the 'perfect' murder involving class, sex and poisoning), as well as unfolding his trenchant views on everything from boys' weeklies and naughty seaside postcards to being arrested in East End.
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Coming Up for Air

Coming Up for Air

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

George Bowling, the hero of this comic novel, is a middle-aged insurance salesman who lives in an average English suburban row house with a wife and two children. One day, after winning some money from a bet, he goes back to the village where he grew up, to fish for carp in a pool he remembers from thirty years before. The pool, alas, is gone, the village has changed beyond recognition, and the principal event of his holiday is an accidental bombing by the RAF.
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All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays

All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

As a critic, George Orwell cast a wide net. Equally at home discussing Charles Dickens and Charlie Chaplin, he moved back and forth across the porous borders between essay and journalism, high art and low. A frequent commentator on literature, language, film, and drama throughout his career, Orwell turned increasingly to the critical essay in the 1940s, when his most important experiences were behind him and some of his most incisive writing lay ahead.All Art Is Propaganda follows Orwell as he demonstrates in piece after piece how intent analysis of a work or body of work gives rise to trenchant aesthetic and philosophical commentary."how to be interesting, line after line." Contents: Charles Dickens Boys' Weeklies Inside the Whale Drama Reviews: *The Tempest, The Peaceful Inn* Film Review: *The Great Dictator* Wells, Hitler and the World State The Art of Donald McGill No, Not One Rudyard Kipling T.S. Eliot Can Socialists Be Happy? Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali Propaganda and Demotic Speech Raffles and Miss Blandish Good Bad Books The Prevention of Literature Politics and the English Language Confessions of a Book Reviewer Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of *Gulliver's Travels* Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool Writers and Leviathan Review of *The Heart of the Matter* by Graham Greene Reflections on Gandhi
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Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Keep the Aspidistra Flying

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has the strength to challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life. Through the character of Gordon Comstock, Orwell reveals his own disaffection with the society he once himself renounced.
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Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

*Alternate Cover Edition can be found [here](https://www./book/show/20691208-1984). * Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.
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Essays

Essays

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

These essays, reviews and articles illuminate the life and work of one of the most individual writers of this century - a man who created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and who elevated political writing to an art.
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Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an Elephant

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

This outstanding collection brings together Orwell's longer, major essays and a fine selection of shorter pieces that includes "Shooting an Elephant", "My Country Right or Left", "Decline of an English Murder" and "A Hanging". With great originality and wit Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to a spirited defence of English cooking. Displaying an almost unrivalled mastery of English plain prose style, Orwell's essays challenge, move and entertain.
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A Life in Letters

A Life in Letters

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

George Orwell was a tireless and lively correspondent. He communicated with family members, friends and newspapers, figures such as Henry Miller, Cyril Connolly, Stephen Spender and Arthur Koestler, and strangers who wrote to him out of the blue. This carefully selected volume of his correspondence provides an eloquent narrative of Orwell's life, from his schooldays to his final illness. Orwell's letters afford a unique and fascinating view of his thoughts on matters both personal, political and much in between, from poltergeists, to girls' school songs and the art of playing croquet. In a note home to his mother from school, he reports having 'aufel fun after tea'; much later he writes of choosing a pseudonym and smuggling a copy of *Ulysses *into the country. We catch illuminating glimpses of his family life: his son Richard's developing teeth, the death of his wife Eileen and his own illness. His talent as a political writer comes to the fore in his descriptions of Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, his opinions on bayonets, and on the chaining of German prisoners. And of course, letters to friends and his publisher chart the development and publication of some of the most famous novels in the English language, providing unparalleled insight into his views on his own work and that of his contemporaries. *A Life in Letters* features previously unpublished material, including letters which shed new light on a love that would haunt him for his whole life, as well as revealing the inspiration for some of his most famous characters. Presented for the first time in a dedicated volume, this selection of Orwell's letters is an indispensible companion to his diaries.
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Burmese Days

Burmese Days

George Orwell

Fiction / Politics / Journalism

Set in the days of the Empire, with the British ruling in Burma, Burmese Days describes both indigenous corruption and Imperial bigotry, when 'after all, natives were natives - interesting, no doubt, but finally only a 'subject' people, an inferior people with black faces'. Against the prevailing orthodoxy, Flory, a white timber merchant, befriends Dr Veraswami, a black enthusiast for Empire. The doctor needs help. U Po Kyin, Sub- divisional Magistrate of Kyauktada, is plotting his downfall. The only thing that can save him is European patronage: membership of the hitherto all-white Club. While Flory prevaricates, beautiful Elizabeth Lackersteen arrives in Upper Burma from Paris. At last, after years of 'solitary hell', romance and marriage appear to offer Flory an escape from the 'lie' of the 'pukka sahib pose'.
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