The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell

This 2007 Companion is a collection of essays on the life and works of George Orwell.

John Rodden (Edited by)

9780521675079, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 21 June 2007

238 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.33 kg

' … there are some interesting things in this volume. There is good introductory essays by John Rossi and Jon Rodden …' The Review of English Studies

George Orwell is regarded as the greatest political writer in English of the twentieth century. The massive critical literature on Orwell has not only become extremely specialized, and therefore somewhat inaccessible to the nonscholar, but it has also attributed to and even created misconceptions about the man, the writer and his literary legacy. For these reasons, an overview of Orwell's writing and influence is an indispensable resource. Accordingly, this 2007 Companion serves as both an introduction to Orwell's work and furnishes numerous innovative interpretations and fresh critical perspectives on it. Throughout the Companion, which includes chapters dedicated to two of Orwell's major novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, Orwell's work is placed within the context of the political and social climate of the time. His response to the Depression, British imperialism, Stalinism, World War II, and the politics of the British Left are also examined.

Preface
Notes on contributors
An Orwell calendar John Rodden
1. A political writer John Rossi and John Rodden
2. Orwell and the biographers Gordon Bowker
3. Englands his Englands: Orwell's Britain between the wars Jonathan Rose
4. The truths of experience: Orwell's nonfiction of the 1930s Margery Sabin
5. The fictional realist: novels of the 1930s Michael Levenson
6. Orwell's essays as a literary experience William Cain
7. 'My Country, Right or Left': Orwell's patriotism John Rossi
8. Orwell and the British left Ian Williams
9. Orwell, anti-semitism, and the Holocaust John Newsinger
10. Orwell and the Cold War Robert Conquest
11. Animal Farm: history as fable M. Dickstein
12. Nineteen Eighty-Four: context and controversy B. Crick
13. Orwell, the academy, and the intellectuals Neil McLaughlin
14. Orwell for today's reader: an open letter John Rodden
15. George Orwell: a bibliographic essay Erika Gottlieb
16. Why Orwell still matters Christopher Hitchens
Further reading.

Subject Areas: Literature: history & criticism [DS]