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"Fifty Essays" is a collection of 50 essays by George Orwell. Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. Included in this collection: - The Spike (1931) - A Hanging (1931) - Bookshop Memories (1936) - Shooting an Elephant (1936) - Down the Mine (1937) - North and South (1937) - Spilling the Spanish Beans (1937) - Marrakech (1939) - Boys' Weeklies and Frank Richards's Reply (1940) - Charles Dickens (1940) - Charles Reade (1940) - Inside the Whale (1940) - The Art of Donald McGill (1941) - The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius (1941) - Wells, Hitler and the World State (1941) - Looking Back on the Spanish War (1942) - Rudyard Kipling (1942) - Mark Twain—The Licensed Jester (1943) - Poetry and the Microphone (1943) - W B Yeats (1943) - Arthur Koestler (1944) - Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali (1944) - Raffles and Miss Blandish (1944) - Antisemitism in Britain (1945) - Freedom of the Park (1945) - Future of a Ruined Germany (1945) - Good Bad Books (1945) - In Defence Of P. G. Wodehouse (1945) - Nonsense Poetry (1945) - Notes on Nationalism (1945) - Revenge is Sour (1945) - The Sporting Spirit (1945) - You and the Atomic Bomb (1945) - A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray (1946) - A Nice Cup of Tea (1946) - Books vs. Cigarettes (1946) - Confessions of a Book Reviewer (1946) - Decline of the English Murder (1946) - How the Poor Die (1946) - James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution (1946) - Pleasure Spots (1946) - Politics and the English Language (1946) - Politics vs. Literature: an Examination of Gulliver's Travels (1946) - Riding Down from Bangor (1946) - Some Thoughts on the Common Toad (1946) - The Prevention of Literature (1946) - Why I Write (1946) - Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool (1947) - Such, Such were the Joys (1947) - Writers and Leviathan (1948) - Reflections on Gandhi (1949)

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George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

Beginning with a dilemma about whether he spends more money on reading or smoking, George Orwell’s entertaining and uncompromising essays go on to explore everything from the perils of second-hand bookshops to the dubious profession of being a critic, from freedom of the press to what patriotism really means. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.