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by George Orwell (Author), Sonia Orwell (Editor), Ian Angus (Editor)
Essays, journalism and essays by the brilliant, indispensable George Orwell from 1945 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.Front Jacket
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 1945, 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.
