Down and out in Paris and London: A Novel

by George Orwell

Paperback, 1961

Original publication date

1933

Pages

6; 213

Status

Available

Call number

DC715.O7 1933

Publication

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, c1933, c1961; 11th printing, later date

Physical description

6, 213 p.; 18.3 cm

ISBN

015626224X / 9780156262248

Language

Description

Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. HTML: Orwell's own experiences inspire this semi-autobiographical novel about a penniless man living in Paris in the early 1930s. The narrator's poverty brings him into contact with strange incidents and characters, which he manages to chronicle with great sensitivity and graphic power. The latter half of the book takes the English narrator to his home city, London, where the world of poverty is different in externals only. A socialist who believed that the lower classes were the wellspring of world reform, Orwell actually went to live among them in England and on the continent. His novel draws on his experiences of this world, from the bottom of the echelon in the kitchens of posh French restaurants to the free lodging houses, tramps, and street people of London. In the tales of both cities, we learn some sobering Orwellian truths about poverty and society..… (more)

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