The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)
Cambridge University Press, 6/7/2012
EAN 9780521132558, ISBN10: 052113255X
Paperback, 148 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1 cm
Language: English
Arguably the most influential political writer of the twentieth century, George Orwell remains a crucial voice for our times. Known world-wide for his two best-selling masterpieces Nineteen Eighty-Four, a gripping portrait of a dystopian future, and Animal Farm, a brilliant satire on the Russian Revolution, Orwell has been revered as an essayist, journalist and literary-political intellectual, and his works have exerted a powerful international impact on the post-World War Two era. This Introduction examines Orwell's life, work and legacy, addressing his towering achievement and his ongoing appeal. Combining important biographical detail with close analysis of his writings, the book considers the various genres in which Orwell wrote: the realistic novel, the essay, journalism and the anti-utopia. Ideally suited for readers approaching Orwell's work for the first time, the book concludes with an extended reflection on why George Orwell has enjoyed a literary afterlife unprecedented among modern authors in any language.
Chronology
Introduction
Part I. Life and Context
1. Background and school days
2. Burma and the wasted years
3. The struggle to become a writer
4. Orwell's breakthrough
5. Spain and Orwell's political education
6. Orwell's war
7. Last years
Part II. Works
8. Burmese Days
9. A Clergyman's Daughter
10. Keep the Aspidistra Flying
11. Coming Up for Air
12. Down and Out in Paris and London
13. The Road to Wigan Pier
14. Homage to Catalonia
15. Orwell, the essayist
16. A Hanging and Shooting an Elephant
17. Inside the Whale
18. Critical Essays
19. Animal Farm
20. Nineteen Eighty-Four
Part III. Critical Reception
21. Starting out in the 1930s
22. Critical controversy and popular success
23. Posthumous fame
24. 'Countdown' to 1-9-8-4
25. Orwell in the twenty-first century
26. An afterlife nonpareil
27. 'If Orwell were alive today'
28. A reputation evergreen
Select bibliography.