Such, Such Were the Joys and Other Essays

Product Description [Library Edition Audiobook CD in Vinyl case.][Read by Frederick Davidson] Viewed as too libelous to print in England until 1968, the title essay in this collection reveals the abuse Orwell experienced as a child at an expensive and snobbish boarding school and offers insights into his lifelong concern for the oppressed. ''Why I Write'' describes Orwell's sense of political purpose, and the classic essay ''Politics and the English Language'' insists on clarity and precision in communication in order to avoid the Newspeak later described in 1984. Other essays focus on Gandhi (he ''disinfected the political air''), Dickens (''no novelist has shown the same power of entering into the child' s point of view''), Kipling (''a jingo imperialist''), Henry Miller (who told Orwell that involvement in the Spanish war was an act of an idiot), and England ''a family with the wrong members in control''). Review People, places, events, and attitudes are all caught and observed with honesty and a distillation of meaning that gives these eleven inclusions their appeal.-- "Kirkus Reviews" About the Author GEORGE ORWELL (1903-1950), the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, was an English novelist, essayist, and critic. He was born in India and educated at Eton. After service with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, he returned to Europe to earn his living by writing and became notable for his simplicity of style and his journalistic or documentary approach to fiction.