The Non-Fiction of George Orwell

The Non-Fiction of George Orwell includes three memoirs, Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier, and Homage to Catalonia which provide an indispensable introduction to the thought and writing of George Orwell. Immediately after deciding to become a writer, the Eton-educated Orwell lived among the paupers and the poorest of working-class labourers in Paris and the East End of London, observing and recording. His first book Down and Out in Paris and London discusses not just the physical life of the poor, but also their inner life. If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, Im a free man in here - he tapped his forehead - and youre all right. ? George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and LondonPeople are wrong when they think that an unemployed man only worries about losing his wages, on the contrary, an illiterate man, with the work habit in his bones, needs work even more than he needs money. An educated man can put up with enforced idleness, which is one of the worst evils of poverty ... The man who really merits pity is the man who has been down from the start, and faces poverty with a blank, resourceless mind. ? George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London. The Road to Wigan Pier, a highly original and unorthodox political treatise, describes Orwells experiences living among the destitute and unemployed miners of northern England, sharing, observing, and describing their lives. It concludes with a passionate description of socialism, a critique of the middle class, who, logically, should support it but are its most vociferous opponents, and a scathing critique of the socialist movements of the time. Robert McCrum describes the books essential role in the evolution of

George Orwell: The upshot of this uniquely strange book was a kind of creative liberation: Eric Blair, who was now unequivocal