Down and Out In Paris and London The Road To Wigan Pier — George Orwell

With an Introduction by Dr Sally Minogue and Notes by David Rampton Department of English University of OttowaGeorge Orwell is a difficult author to summarize He was a would be revolutionary who went to Eton a political writer who abhorred dogma a socialist who thrived on his image as a loner and a member of the Imperial Indian Police who chronicled the iniquities of imperialism Both the books in this volume were published in the 1930s a low dishonest decade as his coeval W H Auden described it Orwell s subjects in Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier are the political and social upheavals of his time He focusses on the sense of profound injustice incipient violence and malign betrayal that were ubiquitous in Europe in the 1930s Orwell s honesty courage and sense of decency are inextricably bound up with the quasi colloquial style that imbues his work with its extraordinary power His descriptions of working in the slums of Paris living the life of a tramp in England and digging for coal with miners in the North make for a thoughtful riveting account of the lives of the working poor and of one man s search for the truth Our edition includes the following essays Marrakech Antisemitism in Britain How the Poor Die The Spike Common Lodging Houses