OFFICIAL ORWELL ESSAYS TIER LIST

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Some Thoughts on the Common Toad

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For a few days after getting into the water the toad concentrates on building up his strength by eating small insects. Presently he has swollen to his normal size again, and then he goes through a phase of intense sexiness. All he knows, at least if he is a male toad, is that he wants to get his arms round something, and if you offer him a stick, or even your finger, he will cling to it with surprising strength and take a long time to discover that it is not a female toad.
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There must be some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of birds living inside the four- mile radius, and it is rather a pleasing thought that none of them pays a halfpenny of rent.
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I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex, and that the sort of pleasure one gets from finding the first primrose will loom larger than the sort of pleasure one gets from eating an ice to the tune of a Wurlitzer.
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S TIER
Why I Write
Shooting an Elephant
The Lion and the Unicorn
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England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much- quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons.

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England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left- wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box.

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My Country Right or Left
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I have often laughed to think of the recruiting poster, ‘What did you do in the Great War, daddy?’ (a child is asking this question of its shame-stricken father), and of all the men who must have been lured into the army by just that poster and afterwards despised by their children for not being Conscientious Objectors.

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In Defence of English Cooking (love it. This is the essay that made me want to take a proper stab at Orwell in the first place)
How the Poor Die
Such, Such Were the Joys
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For people like me, the ambitious middle class, the examination- passers, only a bleak, laborious kind of success was possible. You clambered upwards on a ladder of scholarships into the Civil Service or the Indian Civil Service, or possibly you became a barrister. And if at any point you ‘slacked’ or ‘went off’ and missed one of the rungs of the ladder, you became ‘a little office boy at forty pounds a year’. But even if you climbed to the highest niche that was open to you, you could still only be an underling, a hanger- on of the people who really counted.

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A TIER
The Spike
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His body might be in the spike, but his spirit soared far away, in the pure aether of the middle classes.

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Boys Weeklies
Charles Dickens
Some Notes on Salvador Dali
In Defence of P.G. Wodehouse
Notes on Nationalism
Books v. Cigarettes
Politics and the English Language
Confessions of a Book Reviewer
Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool
Bookshop Memories

B TIER
Hanging
Marrakech
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Gazelles are almost the only animals that look good to eat when they are still alive, in fact, one can hardly look at their hindquarters without thinking of mint sauce.

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Rudyard Kipling
Looking Back on the Spanish War
Raffles and Miss Blandish
Antisemitism in Britain
Good Bad Books
Nonsense Poetry
The Prevention of Literature
Decline of the English Murder
A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray
Writers and Leviathan
Reflections on Gandhi
Arthur Koestler

C TIER
Wells, Hitler and the World State
The Art of Donald McGill
The Sporting Spirit

This collection of Orwell's essays, although spanning various topics, feels surprisingly relevant to our contemporary world—in essence, the sense of anachronism is almost impalpable. One unmistakable feature of this collection is that it touches upon social issues quite frequently and, per Orwell, it is a hallmark of a great writer—as he distinguishes a great writer from a good one in one of the pieces in the collection. Additionally, the social and political issues are explored with remarkable insight and offer valuable lessons for understanding the world around us--the world then and now.

Based on the nature and contents of the essays, it is evident that Orwell was an audacious writer and was not a proselytizing propagandist—neither could he stand one—so he was an independent voice who raged against the machine with such economic diction that it suited everyone’s taste. His ability in the form of prose to arouse awareness in a layman as well as any member of the intelligentsia is admirable—as you may see when you read his essays.

One particularly striking element is Orwell's prescience. His foreknowledge of things to come in the subsequent decades, furthermore as we see all this in hindsight, only compels us to take him seriously. In addition, he readily admits that selfish bias is inevitable regardless, however, the key is to recognize it, and he goes on to say, that if a claim from someone is that they are free of bias it’s safe to assume that it’s nothing but pure disillusionment on their part as it is non-existent.

Below is an excerpt from the essay The Prevention of Literature that has a prophetic quality to it:

Probably novels and stories will be completely superseded by film and radio productions. Or perhaps some kind of low-grade sensational fiction will survive, produced by a sort of conveyor-belt process that reduces human initiative to the minimum

Similarly, Orwell and his generation suffered from the same problem that we do today which is the process of the verification of facts and their certainty if they ever happened, and they are always presented with totally different interpretations from different sources. If people with critical thinking abilities struggle to separate fact from fiction, then the ordinary folk will have no time to waste to side with one group or another owing to their innate proclivities to the group’s ideals. Moreover, Orwell forgives the ordinary consumer who swallows the lies from the propaganda machines or fails to form an opinion of their own—due to the prevalence of confirmation bias and the persuasive nature of propaganda. He emphasizes the importance of media outlets fulfilling their responsibility to report factual information rather than promoting specific agendas.

Orwell's unwavering opposition to totalitarianism remains a central theme throughout the collection. The foundational belief and proclamation of a totalitarian regime are: it is infallible and free of errors, so in no way its subjects or even outsiders are allowed to doubt its boundless efficiency—one more tendency is that the philosophy that it clings to is scientific. Orwell educates the reader that by nature totalitarianism is corrupt because of its bottomless hunger for power. In essence, totalitarianism tends to be oppressive and intolerant, and the prime examples of this are the sudden deaths of serious literature and free press under the choking hands of despots ruling at the top in such a society. Furthermore, what also seems common is to remain in power by either force or fraud—the result of a bottomless hunger for power.

Apart from serious social and political issues, there are a handful of essays that deal with English Cooking, Poetry, Books, and Cigarettes, on various social figures, and their influences on the masses and economics. There is a good deal of fun to be had, as he showcases his comedic talents. One thing in Orwell’s style that is unmistakable is his economy of words, he does not employ grandiose prose on the contrary he believes that—which is also grounded—if the writing tends to be verbose then the chances of straying away from the original story or point increases with respect to the length of writing, so concision is mostly better for delivering the message that’s intended to convey in the first place.

The collection's contemporary resonance is perhaps the most fascinating aspect. Despite being written decades ago, the issues of misinformation, tribalism, and the influence of media remain strikingly relevant. Reading these essays feels not just like a history lesson, but rather a stark reminder of the challenges we continue to face.

Orwell's timeless insights and engaging writing style make this collection a valuable read for anyone interested in exploring the complexities of our world and the enduring human struggle for truth and freedom.

I went for Orwell's six-part essay on Dickens first since I am rereading Bleak House right now. I've decided to get down these thoughts, and break GR's rules, before reading the rest of the book.

In the first paragraph of the fifth section, Orwell's got my number. He is aware, says he, that any fan of Dickens is by now angry at him. I am a fan of Dickens, I was annoyed by his assessment of Dickens' status as nothing but a "moralist".

“Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work”

I can appreciate Orwell's arguments but does he have to be so dismissive of Dickens' genius? Orwell's judgments are so colored by his politics.

“Dickens's views on the servant question do not get much beyond wishing that master and servant would love one another”

Still, I have to admit, I was seeing Dickens' work in a whole new way. And every now and then he sweeps me off my feet with his prescience.

“Without a high level of mechanical development, human equality is not practically possible; Dickens goes to show that it is not imaginable either.”

All in all, I was/am fascinated by Orwell's take on Dickens, which feels only slightly dated. It was written in 1940. Indeed, he is bringing up stuff we In the 21st century ought to revisit and consider.

“Wonderfully as he can describe an APPEARANCE, Dickens does not often describe a process....“Everything is seen from the consumer-angle....“When he speaks of human progress it is usually in terms of MORAL progress–men growing better; probably he would never admit that men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be."

Having gone into example after example of actual work NOT being described, Orwell throws us fans a bone.

“No modern man could combine such purposelessness with so much vitality.”

This is the very line that precedes the "I know you're angry" (dear Reader) sop at the beginning of Part V. But he goes on to make me realize I have grown a bit (in the direction of reality) in my appreciation of Dickens. After going into Dickens' negatives at length, Orwell gets around to his numero uno stroke of brilliance, his use of the "UNNECESSARY DETAIL". By now, his summaries set well. I am a convert.

“Dickens is obviously a writer whose parts are greater than his wholes. He is all fragments, all details–rotten architecture, but wonderful gargoyles–and never better than when he is building up some character who will later on be forced to act inconsistently.”

Isn't this what a great essayist does? He slides effortlessly into a subject close to the reader's heart, wrenches him around with logic for awhile, and leaves him gasping but edified, at the final period?

[Orwell sees in Dickens] "a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is GENEROUSLY ANGRY–in other words, of a nineteenth-century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.”

Now for the other forty nine essays.

I don't have much to add about Orwell, his prescience, his style, etc. I did find something that I confess made me wonder whether Orwell is quite as egalitarian, or as strict about avoiding bad rhetoric, as the people who talk about him now would like him to be. These lines come from "Inside the Whale," a review of Tropic of Cancer: "In mid-nineteenth-century America men felt themselves free and equal, were free and equal, so far as that is possible outside a society of pure Communism. There was poverty and there were even class-distinctions, but except for the Negroes there was no permanently submerged class." With all due respect, you're either not thinking very hard or thinking way too hard when you write something like that. (Look at that "except" again.) His commitment to his argument—that people, all people, had more of a license to be themselves, back in the old days—brings him this close to trying to make the entire levels-deep institution of American white-on-not-white racism disappear. It's pretty awkward. The guy who wrote "Politics and the English Language," Mr. Tell It Like It Is, wouldn't have written it, except that he did.

George Orwell was probably one of the most important social critique of his times. Being in the army, he traveled the world, became part of a society he was alien to and provided well thought out feedback on various issues. He was outspoken about British imperialism during his trip to India and Burma, criticized willful ignorance of liberals during Spanish war and wrote about writers, artists and their works. His body of work is vast and this one large volume doesn't cover it entirely.
George Orwell as an essayist has more impact as a writer than as a novelist. As an essayist he displays an edge, a harshness towards the (British) society that doesn't bat an eye at the world that is on fire. It is a time when there is chaos in Europe and the empire is warring in several parts of geographies. It isn't dissimilar to the world today. His observations is heavily laced with socialism and he isn't one to disagree when asked. There is an unpublished letter that is essentially Orwell telling off a publisher to stop sending him rubbish questionnaire. His book reviews include works by Oscar Wilde, Mukul Raj Anand, T S Elliot, Graham Greene, Sartre, H.G.Wells, D.H.Lawrence, to name a few. Orwell was incredibly well read and followed world politics closely.

Orwell's essay collection gives a glimpse of the world through his eyes. A fierce social critique, his opinions isn't limited to everyday politics but extends to war elsewhere, literature in different countries and art. This collection shows evolution of a man and how he changes as a person as he faces new challenges in new places and gains new experiences. Must read for any who love to see the world from the point of view of an author who believed that a dystopian future was humanity's legacy.

The best collection of essays that I’ve read so far.

14 well-written essays by Eric Arthur Blair (1903-1950) also known as George Orwell. It covers a wide range of topics from his childhood, Spanish Civil War, Mahatma Gandhi, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Jewish religion, politics, etc to his shooting of an elephant while serving as a police in Burma. Perfectly-written in his trademark direct, clear and taut writing the style that I first encountered in his political satirical sci-fi 1984 and political fable Animal Farm.The only difference is that these are non-fiction. The essays made me understand what kind of a man George Orwell was: a lover of equality, justice and free will.

Such, Such Were the Joys 5 stars - Amazing!

A very moving memoir of Orwell’s stay at Crossgates, a school for the rich students in England. He only afforded to go to that school because he was a bright boy. The school kept him because he had a good chance of passing entrance exams in the prestigious universities later and that would help maintaining the image of the school. The one part that I found so sad was that the little George did not have a cake year after year during his stay at that school because his parents could not afford it and this was just one of the ways for a poor but bright pupil could be discriminated. This boyhood memoir is better than Roald Dahl’s Boy: A Story of Childhood as this is more inspiring and meatier.

Charles Dickens 5 stars -Amazing!

David Copperfield and A Tale of the Two Cities are my two novels that I first read when I was in a fresh college graduate in the mid-80s. That’s why they will always be among my favorite classic works. In this essay, Orwell analyzes the works of Dickens in a way that is very easy to understand and will help you appreciate Dickens as a writer. Orwell said that Dickens is a moralist: he wanted to correct the wrongs that are perpetuated by either those in power or those who were rich in England during his time. However, there are a couple of his works that do not belong to this so-called social propagandist drama and they are A Tale of the Two Cities and Hard Times. All the works, including David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, Martin Chuzzlewit and Our Mutual Friend follow a certain formula and fall into the same morality theme. Orwell just made me want to line up next all the other books by Dickens that are in my to-be-read (tbr) file.

The Art of Donald McGill 3 stars- I liked it!

Donald McGill (1875-1962) was a cartoonist whose comic strips were very popular in England during Orwell’s time. Prior to this, I did not know that Britons would love daily comic strips in a way that I and my friends used to read Baltic and Co. on the dailies when we were growing up. Orwell examined the comic strips over the years and wrote a detailed analysis of its main theme and McGill’s outlook on marriage, sex, gender equality and drunkenness. He did not say that he was McGill’s fan but he would not be able to write his conclusion of this long-running comic strip had he not been a fan. Orwell, a comic strip’s fan?!

Rudyard Kipling 4 stars - I really liked it!

Orwell gave his view on T. S. Eliot’s defense of Kipling being branded as a “Fascist.” This label seemed to be triggered by Kipling’s written article regarding a white British soldier beating a “nigger” (yes, during that time this “n” word was still printable). Orwell tends to disagree with Eliot by saying that ”there is a definite strain of sadism in him, over and above the brutality which a write of that type has to have. Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting.” Juicy, rght? Considering that they were both Englishmen and highly esteemed classic novelists. However, the essay is not all negative about Kipling in Orwell’s point of view. He says that Kipling was the only English write of their time who has added phrases to the language and they all became popular like: East is East and West is West; The white man’s burden; What do they know of England who only England know?; The female of the species is more deadly than the male; Somewhere East of Suez; and Paying the Dane-geld.

Raffles and Miss Blandish 4 stars - I really liked it!

Detailed comparison between a 501-mystery book, No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939) by James Hadley Chase and the book that Orwell said to be the book that inspired it, Raffles. I have been looking for a copy of this Miss Blandish book. What Orwell basically gave the plot of the story (about a girl who was raped for a long period of time and she fell in love with her rapist) but I did not take it as a spoiler. Rather, he made me want to order the book via Amazon so I can read it right away. Well, maybe in my next Amazon horde!

Shooting the Elephant 5 stars - Amazing!

Very short yet I guess this is the best essay in the book. It talks about Orwell’s stay in Burma as a policeman. He hated his job because he feels that the Burmese people do not like English people as they are the colonizers, i.e., oppressors. In this particular essay, there is a runaway elephant that has killed a native. Being a policeman, Orwell is asked to kill the elephant. I will not tell you the rest as it is too much of a spoiler. If you have no time to read the whole book, just read this while standing in the bookstore. I assure you that it will be worth the time and the pressure on your legs. You will get a glimpse – a good glimpse – of what kind of man the young Orwell was that probably drove him to write his books that are said to be anti-totalitarianism.

Politics and the English Language 4 stars - I really liked it!

Orwell criticizing the way school professors expressed themselves in written form. He even gave excerpts of these English professors’ formal passages. He said that the decline of the English language is brought about by the foolish thoughts of the writers. These thoughts were made possible because of the slovenliness of the English language. Hence, the situation was similar to a man drinking because he feels himself to be a failure and he becomes a complete failure because he drinks. He gamely offered these pieces of advice for writers:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(v) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Reflections of Gandhi 4 stars - I really liked it!

Orwell hailed Gandhi and his non-violence but he emphasized that the old man did not do anything without personal ambitions. If E. M. Forster’s Passage to India was about British hypocrisy, there were also a hint of hypocrisy in Gandhi’s stance and writings. For example, when Gandhi was asked what should be done with the Jews in Europe, Gandhi allegedly said that German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which “would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.” After the war, Gandhi justified himself: the Jews had been killed anyway, and might as well have died significantly.

Marrakech 3 stars - I liked it!

Before Hitler rose in power in 1931, Jewish jokes were common in Europe. This explained he negative Jewish references that turned me off when I read my first book by Orwell a couple of years back: Down and Out in Paris and London. Now I know better. The Jews have that distinctive look (that was also intimated by Howard Jacobson in his Booker-award winning book, The Finkler Question that was my first book read this year) but they are cunning as they are gutsy in business and fond of money-lending with interest. Well, that was according to Orwell.

Looking Back on the Spanish War 3 stars - I liked it!

The resistance of the working class against Franco. British, France and Russia sided with the urban trade union members while the Nazis Italy and Germany sided with Franco. However, Orwell questioned the intent of Russia in the war. This should have been an interesting essay but I found that war to have of little impact on me compared to WWII in the Pacific. All I know is that American novelists like Hemingway or Cummings volunteered during this period as ambulance drivers. This was because there was the Great Depression in the States so job was scarce.

Inside the Whale5 stars - Amazing!

This is about the feeling of claustrophobia that must have been similar to what the prophet Jonas felt while inside the whale. Orwell used as a springboard Henry Miller and his opus The Tropic of Cancer. Orwell praised Miller for his courage of writing something that belong to the 20’s and not in fashion.

”When Tropic of Cancer was published the Italians were marching into Abyssinia and Hitler’s concentration camps were already bulging. The international foci of the of the world were Rome, Moscow, and Berlin. It did not seem to be a moment at which a novel of outstanding value was likely to be written about American dead-beats edging drinks in the Latin Quarter (France). Of course a novelist is not obliged to write directly about contemporary history, but a novelist who simply disregards the major public events of the moment is generally either a footler or a plain idiot.”

Orwell went on explaining why he found this Miller book outstanding:

”When I first opened Tropic of Cancer and saw that it was full of imprintable words, my immediate reaction was a refusal to be impressed. Most people’s would be the same, I believe. Nevertheless after a lapse of time, the atmosphere of the book, besides innumerable details, seemed to linger in my memory in a peculiar way. Together with his other book, Black Spring, these two books “created a world of their own” as the saying goes. The books that do this are not necessarily good books, they maybe good bad books like Raffles or the Sherlock Holmes stories, or perverse and morbid books like Wuthering Heights or The House of the Green Shutters… Read him (Miller) for five pages, ten pages, and you feel the peculiar relief that comes not so much from understanding as from being understood. ” He knows all about me,” you feel; “he wrote this especially for me.” It is as though you could hear a voice speaking to you, a friendly American voice, with no humbug in it, no moral purpose, merely an implicit assumption that we are all alike.”

England Your England 3 stars - I liked it!

An essay that he wrote while Nazi airplanes were flying on the British skies dropping bombs. Contains his many complaints about Britain’s political system, its stand during the war, its alliances, its expanding middle class, etc.

Boys’ Weeklies 4 stars - I really liked it!

Orwell sold newspaper dailies when he was a young boy and this essay includes his analysis of the dailies during his time. I don’t know of any newspapers in Britain so I was not able to relate to this one. However, I also sold newspapers in the province when I was a young boy.

Why I Write 5 stars - Amazing!

From the tender age of 5 or 6, Orwell already knew that he wanted to become a writer. He was the only boy in the family of 4 that includes his mother and two sisters , older and younger. He was a lonely boy probably because he did grow up with a father and he found comfort in books: reading stories and novels and and writing poetry. At the age of 16, he read Milton’s Paradise Lost that made him realized that the beauty of the English language. He gave the following as motivations the drive writers to write:

(1) Sheer egoism
(2) Esthetic enthusiasm
(3) Historical impulse
(4) Political purpose

Orwell did not say it but I think the last one was what drove him to write 1984 and Animal Farm. He wanted “to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. No book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.” (p. 313).

Sorry for the long review. I was just carried away by this book. I did not know that reading essays could be as exciting and enriching as reading works of fiction.

Tematski raznoliki eseji, od saveta za pripremanje čaja i enterijera idealnog paba, preko književne kritike i ozbiljnih političkih razmatranja : socijalizma u Engleskoj, stanja pred 2. svetski rat, tj. uspona nacističkog zla, o mračnim stranama britanske politke u predratnoj podršci Musoliniju i Hitleru koja im se obila o glavu kasnije, i kolonijalnih iskustava iz mladosti kada je autor služio Imperiji u Burmi. Sve u svemu, značajno istorijsko svedočanstvo od nekoga ko je to sve neposredno doživeo, i prikazao na jedan ne baš uobičajen način koji bi se mogao očekivati od osobe koja dolazi sa tih prostora.

لم أندهش كثيراً عندما اكتشفت للمرة الأولى أن سبعين بالمئة من مجموعة المقالات هذه مألوفة أو سبق لي الإطلاع عليها، ذلك أن هذا ما يحدث عادةً حين يقودك هوسك بآراء كاتبٍ ما إلى شراء أي كتاب يحمل اسمه على غلافه دون أن تكلف نفسك عناء تصفحه أو القراءة عنه. فتجد نفسك أمام خيارين لا ثالث لهما، إما أن تعيد قراءة المقالات التي - لسوء حظك - انهيت قراءتها قبل عدة اسابيع فقط، أو أن تضع الكتاب على الرف دون قراءته ويتملكك حينها شعور بأن الكاتب غاضب عليك وسيرسل أشباحه لمطاردتك. وإن كان لا بد من وجود جانب مشرق، فالعزاء الوحيد هو أن المقالات التي لم يسبق لي قراءتها (عددها أربعة فقط) تعد من أفضل ما قرأت لأورويل لأنه يذهب في توثيق الحقيقة إلى حد الكشف عن تجاربه الشخصية.. طفولته البائسة، اخفاقاته، اختياراته غير الموفقة، معاركه الخاسرة. أعتقد أن أورويل نفسه هو الذي كتب مُعلقاً على مذكرات سالڤادور دالي:

"An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats."

I liked "Why I Write", "Shooting an Elephant", and "Bookshop Memories" but the rest of the essays I honestly found rather uninteresting. I rate Orwell's other non-fiction quite highly but this collection disappointed me. Why am I supposed to care about whether cigarettes are more expensive than books?

A great collection in its own right but used for a specific purpose in this reading: to formulate a curriculum on identifying rhetoric, purpose, and critical examinations of an author's argument that reveals itself as repetitive, predictable, and banal.

Which is why this gets a slightly lower score than I might have given it had I been reading for my own pleasure.

Orwell is a very good writer but his rhetoric leans too heavily on certain modes and his arguments tend to fall towards fallacies, especially in his choice of examples, analogies, or anecdotes that when analysing text after text this proves to be true which becomes repetitive and less inspiring; they become, predictable and therefore the weight of his argument reveals itself as banal.

But this isn't the way you're supposed to read his essays. That said, as a teacher teaching analysis, purpose, and rhetoric, it has forced me to relinquish the enjoyment that these essays might have produced had I been reading for pleasure rather than for a very specific (and might I say, thoroughly useless [I do not agree with CORE or a push towards AP anything]) purpose.

OBS den version jag har läst är inte denna, men en liknande

I've said it before. I'll say it again. It's Orwell. It's fantastic. I actually read a free Gutenberg version of his 50 essays, but it's much the same as this edition. A few of the essays were too political and only relevant to certain past events. A few were quite boring or about very obscure subjects. Yet the vast majority were absolutely fantastic, topical, relevant for today and incredibly well constructed. Essential reading for Orwell fans. Otherwise a condensed version of his best pieces might be the way to go. Several of them should be required reading for school students.