George Orwell: Diaries
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
This groundbreaking volume, never before published in the United States, at last introduces the interior life of George Orwell, the writer who defined twentieth-century political thought. Written as individual books throughout his career, the eleven surviving diaries collected here record Orwell's youthful travels among miners and itinerant laborers, the fearsome rise of totalitarianism, the horrific drama of World War II, and the feverish composition of his great masterpieces Animal Farm and 1984 (which have now sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author). Personal entries cover the tragic death of his first wife and Orwell's own decline as he battled tuberculosis. Exhibiting great brilliance of prose and composition, these treasured dispatches, edited by the world's leading Orwell scholar, exhibit "the seeds of famous passages to come" (New Statesman) and amount to a volume as penetrating as the autobiography he would never write.
Product Details
Price
$39.95
$37.15
Publisher
Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publish Date
August 20, 2012
Pages
597
Dimensions
6.5 X 1.7 X 9.4 inches | 2.2 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780871404107
BISAC Categories:
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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. An author and journalist, Orwell was one of the most prominent and influential figures in twentieth-century literature. His unique political allegory Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with the dystopia of 1984 (1949), which brought him worldwide fame.
PETER DAVISON is Secretary to the Trustees of Albany and Visiting Professor in Performance Arts at Westfield College, University of London, UK.
Christopher Hitchens was the author of numerous books, including the controversial international bestseller God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
Reviews
A window into the way Orwell's mind worked.--Barry Gewen
...[T]he diaries as a whole do exactly what you would expect: They confirm his greatness.--Craig Seligman
Edited with exemplary skill and grace by Peter Davison.--William H. Gass
Starred review. [A] lushly annotated edition of Orwell's diaries from 1931 to 1949.... Born Eric Arthur Blair, Orwell, as these diaries reveal, lived a varied and even dichotomized life. ...Editor Davison (English/De Montfort Univ.) supplies necessary contextual information and footnotes generously, but stays in the shadows and allows us to truly enjoy Orwell's impressive chronicles.
Read with care, George Orwell's diaries, from the years 1931 to 1949, can greatly enrich our understanding of how Orwell transmuted the raw material of everyday experience into some of his best-known novels and polemics. They furnish us with a more intimate picture of a man who, committed to the struggles of the mechanized and "modern" world, was also drawn by the rhythms of the wild, the rural, and the remote.--Christopher Hitchens
One cannot help but be struck by the degree to which [Orwell] became, in Henry James's words, one of those upon whom nothing was lost. By declining to lie, even as far as possible to himself, and by his determination to seek elusive but verifiable truth, he showed how much can be accomplished by an individual who unites the qualities of intellectual honesty and moral courage.--Christopher Hitchens, from the Introduction of Diaries
Orwell's achievement grew out of seemingly modest virtues: decency; good, hard sense; and clean, clear prose. Yet they added up to something monumental... The diaries as a whole do exactly what you would expect: They confirm his greatness.--Craig Seligman
Reading these diaries leaves one, as always when encountering the words of George Orwell, with a confirmed admiration for the sterling qualities that have made him a benchmark for integrity and a lodestar for writers and thinkers across the ideological spectrum. Embedded in the DNA of his writing is that austere, penetrating analytical ability, averse to cant or any form of hypocrisy and pretension, unsparing of everything and everyone--especially himself. He simply can't help being that way: Once pen is put to paper, or fingers to typewriter, those qualities appear, second nature to his writing, even the most casual.--Martin Rubin
We should celebrate the publication of Orwell's diaries. The publication of personal texts by other authors might smack of cheap opportunism, purely a money-making ploy. But I think publishers got it right with Orwell.--Scott Beauchamp
...[T]he diaries as a whole do exactly what you would expect: They confirm his greatness.--Craig Seligman
Edited with exemplary skill and grace by Peter Davison.--William H. Gass
Starred review. [A] lushly annotated edition of Orwell's diaries from 1931 to 1949.... Born Eric Arthur Blair, Orwell, as these diaries reveal, lived a varied and even dichotomized life. ...Editor Davison (English/De Montfort Univ.) supplies necessary contextual information and footnotes generously, but stays in the shadows and allows us to truly enjoy Orwell's impressive chronicles.
Read with care, George Orwell's diaries, from the years 1931 to 1949, can greatly enrich our understanding of how Orwell transmuted the raw material of everyday experience into some of his best-known novels and polemics. They furnish us with a more intimate picture of a man who, committed to the struggles of the mechanized and "modern" world, was also drawn by the rhythms of the wild, the rural, and the remote.--Christopher Hitchens
One cannot help but be struck by the degree to which [Orwell] became, in Henry James's words, one of those upon whom nothing was lost. By declining to lie, even as far as possible to himself, and by his determination to seek elusive but verifiable truth, he showed how much can be accomplished by an individual who unites the qualities of intellectual honesty and moral courage.--Christopher Hitchens, from the Introduction of Diaries
Orwell's achievement grew out of seemingly modest virtues: decency; good, hard sense; and clean, clear prose. Yet they added up to something monumental... The diaries as a whole do exactly what you would expect: They confirm his greatness.--Craig Seligman
Reading these diaries leaves one, as always when encountering the words of George Orwell, with a confirmed admiration for the sterling qualities that have made him a benchmark for integrity and a lodestar for writers and thinkers across the ideological spectrum. Embedded in the DNA of his writing is that austere, penetrating analytical ability, averse to cant or any form of hypocrisy and pretension, unsparing of everything and everyone--especially himself. He simply can't help being that way: Once pen is put to paper, or fingers to typewriter, those qualities appear, second nature to his writing, even the most casual.--Martin Rubin
We should celebrate the publication of Orwell's diaries. The publication of personal texts by other authors might smack of cheap opportunism, purely a money-making ploy. But I think publishers got it right with Orwell.--Scott Beauchamp
