VII
VIII
Part Two
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
Part Three
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
Appendix – The Principles of Newspeak
Essays
The Spike (1931)
A Hanging (1931)
Bookshop Memories (1936)
Shooting an Elephant (1936)
Down the Mine (1937) (From "The Road to Wigan Pier")
North and South (1937) (From "The Road to Wigan Pier")
Spilling the Spanish Beans (1937)
Marrakech (1939)
Boys' Weeklies and Frank Richards's Reply (1940)
Charles Dickens (1940)
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
Charles Reade (1940)
Inside the Whale (1940)
I
II
III
The Art of Donald McGill (1941)
The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius (1941)
Part I: England Your England
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
Part II: Shopkeepers at War
i.
ii.
iii.
Part III: The English Revolution
i.
ii.
iii.
Wells, Hitler and the World State (1941)
Looking Back on the Spanish War (1942)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Rudyard Kipling (1942)
Mark Twain—The Licensed Jester (1943)
Poetry and the Microphone (1943)
W B Yeats (1943)
Arthur Koestler (1944)
Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali (1944)
Raffles and Miss Blandish (1944)
Antisemitism in Britain (1945)
Freedom of the Park (1945)
Future of a Ruined Germany (1945)
Good Bad Books (1945)
In Defence Of P. G. Wodehouse (1945)
Nonsense Poetry (1945)
Notes on Nationalism (1945)
Revenge is Sour (1945)
The Sporting Spirit (1945)
You and the Atomic Bomb (1945)
A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray (1946)
A Nice Cup of Tea (1946)
Books vs. Cigarettes (1946)
Confessions of a Book Reviewer (1946)
Decline of the English Murder (1946)
How the Poor Die (1946)
James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution (1946)
Pleasure Spots (1946)
Politics and the English Language (1946)
Politics vs. Literature: an Examination of Gulliver's Travels (1946)
Riding Down from Bangor (1946)
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad (1946)
The Prevention of Literature (1946)
Why I Write (1946)
Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool (1947)
Such, Such were the Joys (1947)
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
Writers and Leviathan (1948)
Reflections on Gandhi (1949)
Down and Out in Paris and London
O scathful harm, condicion of poverte!
CHAUCER
Chapter I
The Rue Du Coq d'Or, Paris, seven in the morning. A succession of furious, choking yells from the street. Madame Monce, who kept the little hotel opposite mine, had come out onto the pavement to address a lodger on the third floor. Her bare feet were stuck into sabots and her grey hair was streaming down.
Madame Monce: 'Sacrée salope! How many times have I told you not to squash bugs on the wallpaper? Do you think you've bought the hotel, eh? Why can't you throw them out of the window like everyone else? Espèce de traînée!'
The woman on the third floor: 'Va donc, eh! vieille vache!'
Thereupon a whole variegated chorus of yells, as windows were flung open on every side and half the street joined in the quarrel. They shut up abruptly ten minutes later, when a squadron of cavalry rode past and people stopped shouting to look at them.
I sketch this scene, just to convey something of the spirit of the Rue du Coq d'Or. Not that quarrels were the only thing that happened there—but still, we seldom got through the morning without