In the original dustsheet. Green cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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A lovely clean edition

The Road to Wigan Pier is a book by the English writer George Orwell, first published in 1937. The first half of this work documents his sociological investigations of the bleak living conditions among the working class in Lancashire and Yorkshire in the industrial north of England before World War II. The second half is a long essay on his middle-class upbringing, and the development of his political conscience, questioning British attitudes towards socialism. Orwell states plainly that he himself is in favour of socialism but feels it necessary to point out reasons why many people who would benefit from socialism, and should logically support it, are in practice likely to be strong opponents.

According to Orwell biographer Bernard Crick, publisher Victor Gollancz first tried to persuade Orwell’s agent to allow the Left Book Club edition to consist solely of the descriptive first half of the book. When this was refused Gollancz wrote an introduction to the book. “Victor could not bear to reject it, even though his suggestion that the ‘repugnant’ second half should be omitted from the Club edition was turned down. On this occasion Victor, albeit nervously, did overrule Communist Party objections in favour of his publishing instinct. His compromise was to publish the book with [an introduction] full of good criticism, unfair criticism, and half-truths.”

The book grapples “with the social and historical reality of Depression suffering in the north of England, – Orwell does not wish merely to enumerate evils and injustices, but to break through what he regards as middle-class oblivion, – Orwell’s corrective to such falsity comes first by immersion of his own body – a supreme measure of truth for Orwell – directly into the experience of misery.”

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterized by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism.

Orwell produced literary criticism and poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics and literature, language and culture.

Blair was born in India and raised and educated in England. After school he became an Imperial policeman in Burma, before returning to Suffolk, England, where he began his writing career as George Orwell—a name inspired by a favourite location, the river Orwell. He lived from occasional pieces of journalism and worked as a teacher or bookseller whilst living in London. From the late 1920s to the early 1930s, his success as a writer grew and his first books were published. He was wounded fighting in the Spanish Civil War, leading to his first period of ill health on return to England. During the Second World War he worked as a journalist and for the BBC. The publication of Animal Farm led to fame during his lifetime. During the final years of his life, he worked on Nineteen Eighty-Four, and moved between Jura in Scotland and London. It was published in June 1949, less than a year before his death.

Orwell’s work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective “Orwellian”—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as “Big Brother”, “Thought Police”, “Room 101”, “Newspeak”, “memory hole”, “doublethink”, and “thoughtcrime”. In 2008, The Times ranked George Orwell second among “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”.