It has not proved possible to date precisely when George Orwell prepared the first part of the typescript of his essay on Evelyn Waugh, nor to date exactly the notes he wrote in his last Literary Notebook, though all are from 1949. On the cover of a...
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Doublethink, a word coined by George Orwell in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, describes the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. It is related to, but distinct from, hypocrisy and neutrality. Its opposite is cognitive dissonance, where the two beliefs cause conflict in one’s mind. Doublethink is an...
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The New Leader, 30 April 1937 This article was headed by the statement ‘The whole of this story is in the words of the men who took part in it. It consists entirely of extracts from letters to John McNair from Bob Smillie, Eric Blair, Albert Gross...
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A collection of some of George Orwell’s best essays: A Hanging (1931) Shooting an Elephant (1936) Rudyard Kipling (1942) Looking Back on the Spanish War (1942) In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse (1945) Politics and the English Language (1946) Some Thoughts on the Common Toad (1946) Why...
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Tribune, 22 December 1944 G. K. Chesterton said once that every novelist writes one book whose title seems to be a summing-up of his attitude to life. He in­stanced, for Dickens, Great Expectations, and for Scott, Tales of a Grandfather. What title would one choose as especially...
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Punch, 27 May–29 July 1848 Table of Contents I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ I. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzroy Timmins live in Lilliput Street, that neat little street which runs at right angles with the Park and Brobdingnag Gardens. It is a very genteel neighborhood, and I need...
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College Days, No. 3, 29 November 1919. Probably by Orwell. If you can keep your face, when all about you Are doing their level best to push it in. If you can swear (though, swearing, all men doubt you) It wasn’t you who slicked the keeper’s shin, If...
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Alfred Perles (1897–1990), a friend and companion of Henry Miller the novelist, wrote this fascinating account of an odd encounter in Paris. Orwell had reviewed Miller’s Black Spring and written to him about his admiration for Tropic of Cancer. In his great essay of 1940, Inside the...
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Tribune, 4 June 1943 “When a man of true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this infallible sign, that all the dunces are in conspiracy against him.” So wrote Jonathan Swift, two hundred years before the publication of Ulysses. If you consult any...
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Seccion Inglesa, 10, Rambla de los Estudios, Barcelona. 12 April 1937 Dear Mr. Moore, I hope you received my message of thanks for sending out the two copies of Wigan Pier when it was first published. Now I wish to thank you for the four further copies,...
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George Woodcock (1912–1995) was a Canadian writer and scholar. He met Orwell during the war while Orwell was at the BBC and when Woodcock was active in the peace movement, working with British Anarchists and libertarians. They became good friends. This is the text of Woodcock’s “Recollections of George Orwell”, Northern Review,...
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The Road to Wigan Pier was published by Victor Gollancz Ltd on 8 March 1937, less than twelve weeks after Orwell had delivered the typescript to his agent. It was not proofread by either Orwell or Eileen. It appeared as a Left Book Club selection and a...
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Manchester Evening News, 16 April 1945 No date has yet been fixed for the General Election, but it has been officially stated that the municipal elections will take place at the end of this month provided that the date fixed does not coincide with some great external...
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In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the fictional language Newspeak attempts to influence thought by influencing the expressiveness of the English language. In keeping with the principles of Newspeak, all of the words listed here serve as both nouns and verbs; thus, crimethink is both the noun meaning “thoughtcrime” and...
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The Observer, 19 April 1942. Published anonymously.1 There is not much grumbling about the Budget. Common ale at tenpence a pint and cigarettes at ten for a shilling, unimaginable a few years ago, now seem hardly worth bothering about. In so...
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College Days, No. 5, 9 July 1920 Not a breath is heard, not a moving of lip, As his hand stays poised o’er the shutter, And only the gnat on the neck gives a nip, And we think of the words...
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11 February 1937 24 Croom’s Hill, Greenwich, S.E. 10. Dear Mr. Moore,1 Thank you very much for your letter. I do, of course, agree with you that Mr. Gollancz should make the separate edition of Part I of Wigan Pier and...
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Appendix to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as...
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Bulletin of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification1 (P.O.U.M.2) 3 February 1937 British Author With the Militia At the beginning of January, we received a visit in Barcelona from Eric Blair, the well-known British author, whose work is so much appreciated...
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The Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification (Spanish: Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, POUM) was a Spanish communist political party formed during the Second Republic and mainly active around the Spanish Civil War. It was formed by the fusion of the Trotskyist Communist Left of Spain (Izquierda Comunista de España, ICE) and the Workers and Peasants’...
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1 Juventud Communist Iberica, Monte Oscurio Alcubierre, Huesca Commandante Kopp.2 Dear Mr Hanley,3 Many thanks for your letter. I dare say my wife has already acknowledged it, as it reached me open & she is dealing with my...
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George Orwell had hoped to leave England for Spain about 23 December 1936 after seeing Victor Gollancz on the 21st about the publication of The Road to Wigan Pier. He arrived in Barcelona about 26 December 1936. Some months after Orwell died,...
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The Adelphi, June 1931 This is a very exceptional book. It starts uncertainly, and it is handicapped by a bad style, rather like the style of Lang’s crib to the Odyssey. But one scarcely worries about this, the story goes so...
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Summer 1921. Orwell’s last poem to Jacintha Buddicom: Friendship and love are closely intertwined, My heart belongs to your befriending mind: But chilling sunlit fields, cloud-shadows fall— My love can’t reach your heedless heart at all. Jacintha Buddicom responded with: By light...
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Excerpt from Bernard Crick’s biography George Orwell: A Life. Eric Arthur Blair was born at Motihari in Bengal on 25 June 1903, five years after his sister Marjorie, who was born at Tehta in Bihar. His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, was in...
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