Facing Unpleasant Facts · Narrative Essays (Before Orwell)

George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist,producing throughout his life an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected--and illuminated--the fraught times in which he lived. "As soon as he began to write something," comments George Packer in his foreword, "it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge--in short, to think--as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent."Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell's development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites such classics as "Shooting an Elephant" with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell's boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex.

Contents:

The Spike

Clink

A Hanging

Shooting an Elephant

Bookshop Memories

Marrakech

My Country Right or Left

War-time Diary

England Your England

Dear Doktor Goebbels - Your British Friends Are Feeding Fine!

Looking Back on the Spanish War

As I Please, 1

As I Please, 2

As I Please, 3

As I Please, 16

Revenge Is Sour

The Case for the Open Fire

The Sporting Spirit

In Defence of English Cooking

A Nice Cup of Tea

The Moon Under Water

In Front of Your Nose

Some Thoughts on the Common Toad

A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray

Why I Write

How the Poor Die

Such, Such Were the Joys