Product Overview
A major literary eventthe long-awaited publication of George Orwell's diaries, chronicling the events that inspired his greatest works.
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 Orwells 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 Orwells own decline as he battled tuberculosis. Exhibiting great brilliance of prose and composition, these treasured dispatches, edited by the worlds 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. 30 illustrations
