George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. Politics vs. Literature, the fourth in the Orwell’s Essays series, is, at heart, a review of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Having been given a copy of the book on his eighth birthday, Orwell knows it inside out, and thinks highly of it; it is ‘pessimistic’, though, he says – ‘it descends into political partisanship of a narrow kind,’ designed to ‘humiliate man by reminding him that he is weak and ridiculous.’ Using the book as an example of enjoying a book whose author one cannot stand, Orwell goes on to say that he considers Gulliver’s Travels a work of art, leaving the reader to reconsider the books on their own shelves. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Politics and the English Language, the second in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell takes aim at the language used in politics, which, he says, ‘is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. In an age where the language used in politics is constantly under the microscope, Orwell’s Politics and the English Language is just as relevant today, and gives the reader a vital understanding of the tactics at play. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

This book contains two essays by Orwell: "Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" and "Politics and the English Language". In the former, he decries "Gulliver's Travels" as an attack on humanity and questions Swift's highly critical view of pure science and discovery; while in the latter, Orwell explores the connection bet...

This lively collection of essays gives a non-technical, but profound analysis of the essential relationship between politics and literature. Bernard Crick shows how 'political theatre' is often both bad theatre and simplistic politics, but how good producers can bring out political messages in such seemingly 'unpolitical' dramas as Twelfth Night. The essays begin with general themes, including a vigorous critique of RSC and NT producers' views of the political, and a denial of the myth that the far left dominated 1930s writing. They then move on to an analysis of George Orwell and finally to celebrate specific occasions and events in modern British theatre. With his refreshing disrespect for over-ornate and overly scholastic Marxist and academic writers, Professor Crick's book will be of interest to all those concerned with the arts and the theatre, as well as political philosophers and English literature students.

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. Fearing that England was about to be wiped from the face of the earth by the Nazi bombers flying overhead, Orwell put pen to paper and set out to make a record of English culture. England Your England, the sixth in the Orwell’s Essays series, is this record, and is an important tableau of the nation’s history, and demonstrates a resolute refusal to bow to the threatening forces of Fascism. 'It just keeps being horribly relevant.' (David Olusoga, The Guardian) 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' (Irish Times)