Networking Orwell
Here I’m in the process of listing pieces by Orwell which bear usefully on his main works of fiction and non-fiction. This is an always evolving list, and is meant primarily for the benefit of my undergraduate students at the University of Birmingham. Abbreviations to CW in the below refer to the indicated volumes of The Complete Works of George Orwell, edited by Peter Davison with the assistance of Ian Angus and Sheila Davison, published in London by Secker & Warburg. Where possible, I’ve given links to reliable and publicly available versions of the texts in question.
General Interest
- ‘Charles Dickens’ (1940): CW, 12, pp. 20-57
- ‘Boys’ Weeklies’ (1940): CW, 12, pp. 57-79
- ‘Inside the Whale’ (1940): CW, 12, pp. 86-115
- ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ (1941): CW, 12, pp. 391-434
- ‘Literary Criticism I: The Frontiers of Art and Propaganda’ (1941): CW, 12, pp. 483-6
- ‘Literary Criticism IV: Literature and Totalitarianism’ (1941): CW, 12, pp. 501-6
- ‘Why I Write’ (1946): CW, 18, pp. 316-21
- ‘Politics and the English Language’ (1946): CW, 17, pp. 421-32
Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
[if you like Down and Out in Paris and London, consider reading The People of the Abyss (1903), by Jack London; or Homesick (2019), by Catrina Davies]
- ‘The Spike’ (1931): CW, 10, pp. 197-203
- ‘Clink’ (unpublished; written 1932): CW, 10, pp. 254-60 [see also this news article]
- ‘Common Lodging Houses’ (1932): CW, 10, pp. 265-7
Burmese Days (1934)
[if you like Burmese Days, consider reading Lord Jim (1900), by Joseph Conrad; A Passage to India (1924), by E. M. Forster; or Untouchable (1935), by Mulk Raj Anand]
- ‘A Hanging’ (1931): CW, 10, pp. 207-10
- ‘Shooting an Elephant’ (1936): CW, 10, pp. 501-6
- review of Trials in Burma, by Maurice Collis (1938): CW, 11, p. 125
- ‘Rudyard Kipling’ (1942): CW, 13, pp. 150-62
- review of Beggar My Neighbour by Lionel Fielden (1943): CW, 15, pp. 209-16
A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935)
- ‘Hop-Picking’ (1931): CW, 10, pp. 233-5
- extracts from Orwell’s hop-picking diary (1931); see also CW, 10, pp. 214-26 and 228-31
- review of Gypsies by Martin Block, translated by Barbara Kuczynski and Duncan Taylor (1938): CW, 11, pp. 246-7
Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936)
- ‘Bookshop Memories’ (1936): CW, 10, pp. 510-13
- ‘Inside the Whale’ (1940): CW, 12, pp. 86-115
The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)
[if you like The Road to Wigan Pier, consider reading Wigan Pier Revisited (1984), by Beatrix Campbell; or The Road to Wigan Pier Revisited (2012), by Stephen Armstrong]
- ‘Will Freedom Die with Capitalism?’ (1941): CW, 12, pp. 458-64
Homage to Catalonia (1938)
[if you like Homage to Catalonia, consider reading For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), by Ernest Hemingway; The Face of War (1959), by Martha Gellhorn; or A Moment of War (1991), by Laurie Lee]
- ‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’ (1937): CW, 11, pp. 41-6
- review of The Spanish Cockpit, by Franz Borkenau; Volunteer in Spain, by John Sommerfield (1937): CW, 11, pp. 51-2
- ‘Eye-Witness in Barcelona’ (1937): CW, 11, pp. 54-60
- review of Storm Over Spain, by Mairin Mitchell; Spanish Rehearsal, by Arnold Lunn; Catalonia Infelix, by E. Allison Peers; Wars of Ideas, by José Castillejo; Invertebrate Spain, by José Ortega y Gasset (1937): CW, 11, pp. 102-3
- ‘Notes on the Spanish Militias’ (1939?): CW, 11, pp. 135-45
- ‘Caesarean Section in Spain’ (1939): CW, 11, pp. 332-5
- review of Hotel in Flight, by Nancy Johnstone (1939): CW, 11, pp. 415-16
- ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’ (1942?): CW, 13, pp. 497-511
Coming Up for Air (1939)
- ‘Political Reflections on the Crisis’ (1938): CW, 11, pp. 242-6
- ‘Democracy in the British Army’ (1939): CW, 11, pp. 404-7
- ‘My Country Right or Left’ (1940): CW, 12, pp. 269-72
Animal Farm (1945)
- review of Russia under Soviet Rule, by N. de Basily (1939): CW, 11, pp. 315-17
- ‘Propaganda and Demotic Speech’ (1944): CW, 16, pp. 310-16
- ‘The Freedom of the Press’ (1945; posth., 1972): CW, 17, pp. 252-60
- ‘Preface’ to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm (1947): CW, 19, pp. 86-9
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
[if you like Nineteen Eighty-Four, consider reading We (1924), by Evgeny Zamyatin; Brave New World (1932), by Aldous Huxley; Swastika Night (1937), by Katharine Burdekin; or The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), by Margaret Atwood]
- review of Assignment in Utopia, by Eugene Lyons (1938): CW, 11, pp. 158-60
- review of Power: A New Social Analysis, by Bertrand Russell (1939): CW, 11, pp. 311-12
- review of Russia under Soviet Rule, by N. de Basily (1939): CW, 11, pp. 315-17
- ‘Notes on the Way’ (1940): CW, 12, pp. 121-7
- ‘New Words’ (1940?): CW, 12, pp. 127-35
- review of The Totalitarian Enemy, by F. Borkenau (1940): CW, 12, pp. 158-60
- ‘Will Freedom Die with Capitalism?’ (1941): CW, 12, pp. 458-64
- ‘English Writing in Total War’ (1941): CW, 12, pp. 527-31
- ‘Just Junk—But Who Could Resist It?’ (1946): CW, 18, pp. 17-19
- ‘Pleasure Spots’ (1946): CW, 18, pp. 29-32