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The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume II: My Country Right or Left 1940-1943 by George Orwell Edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus a.b.e-book v3.0 / Notes at EOF Back Cover: "He was a man, like Lawrence, whose personality shines out in everything he said or wrote." -- Cyril Connolly George Orwell requested in his will that no biography of him should be written. This collection of essays, reviews, articles, and letters which he wrote between the ages of seventeen and forty-six (when he died) is arranged in chronological order. The four volumes provide at once a wonderfully intimate impression of, and a "splendid monument" to, one of the most honest and individual writers of this century -- a man who forged a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud, who possessed an unerring gift for going straight to the point, and who elevated political writing to an art. The second volume principally covers the two years when George Orwell worked as a Talks Assistant (and later Producer) in the Indian section of the B.B.C. At the same time he was writing for Horizon, New Statesman and other periodicals. His war-time diaries are included here. Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia First published in England by Seeker & Warburg 1968 Published in Penguin Books 1970 Reprinted 1971 Copyright © Sonia Brownell Orwell, 1968 Made and printed in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd, Aylesbury, Bucks Set in Linotype Times This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser Contents Acknowledgements A Note on the Editing 1940 1. New Words 2. Review of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler 3. Notes on the Way 4. Letter to Rayner Heppenstall 5. Review of Personal Record by Julian Green 6. Letter to Rayner Heppenstall 7. [Autobiographical Note] 8. Review of The Totalitarian Enemy by Franz Borkenau 9. Letter to the Editor of Time and Tide 10. Letter to John Lehmann 11. Prophecies of Fascism 12. Letter to James Laughlin 13. Charles Reade 14. The Proletarian Writer 15. Review of Landfall by Nevil Shute, etc. 1941 16. London Letter to Partisan Review 17. The Lion and the Unicorn 18. Letter to the Reverend Iorwerth Jones 19. London Letter to Partisan Review 20. The Frontiers of Art and Propaganda 21. Tolstoy and Shakespeare 22. The Meaning of a Poem 23. Literature and Totalitarianism 24. Letter to Dorothy Plowman 25. Wells, Hitler and the World State 26. London Letter to Partisan Review 27. The Art of Donald McGill 28. No, Not One 1942 29. London Letter to Partisan Review 30. Rudyard Kipling 31. The Rediscovery of Europe 32. The British Crisis: London Letter to Partisan Review 33. Review of The Sword and the Sickle by Mulk Raj Anand 34. Pacifism and the War 35. London Letter to Partisan Review 36. Review of Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages by T. S. Eliot 37. An Unpublished Letter to the Editor of The Times 38. B.B.C. Internal Memorandum 39. Letter to T. S. Eliot 40. Review of The British Way in Warfare by B. H. Liddell Hart 41. Looking Back on the Spanish War 42. Letter to George Woodcock 1943 43. W.B.Yeats 44. Letter from England to Partisan Review 45. Pamphlet Literature 46. London Letter to Partisan Review 47. Literature and the Left 48. Letter to an American Visitor by Obadiah Hornbooke and As One Non-Combatant to Another 49. Letter to Alex Comfort 50. Letter to Rayner Heppenstall 51. Review of Beggar My Neighbour by Lionel Fielden 52. Letter to L. F. Rushbrook-Williams 53. Letter to Philip Rahv 54. Who Are the War Criminals? 55. Mark Twain -- The Licensed Jester 56. Poetry and the Microphone War-time Diaries 57. War-time Diary: 28 May 1940-28 August 1941 58. War-time Diary: 14 March 1942-15 November 1942 Appendix I: Books by or containing contributions by George Orwell Appendix II: Chronology Acknowledgements The editors wish to express their grateful thanks to the following institutions and libraries, their trustees, curators and staffs for their co-operation and valuable help and for making copies of Orwell material available: Sir Frank Francis, Director and Principal Librarian of the British Museum (for: II: 37; III: 105; IV: 8); Dr John D. Gordan, Curator of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (for: 1:18, 22, 23, 31, 33, 36, 38, 48, 50-52, 54, 58, 60, 61, 73, 75, 76, 86, 92, 98, 108, 112, 116, 121, 124, 128, 133, 139, 140, 141, 146, 154; III: 53, 97, 106; IV: 29, 59, 92, 95, 100, 106, 107, 110, 115, 121, 126, 136, 137, 142, 144, 159, 164, 165); Dr Warren Roberts, Director of the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas (for: I: 65, 66, 79, 102, 122, 123, 161; II: 4, 6, 10, 50; III: 52); S. C. Sutton, Librarian and Keeper of India Office Records (for: I: 115); Robert L. Collison, Librarian of the B.B.C. Library (for: II: 38, 39, 52); Dr G. Chandler, Librarian of Liverpool City Library (for: 1: 94); Wilbur Smith, Head of the Department of Special Collections, Library of the University of California, Los Angeles (for: I: 84); Anne Abley, Librarian of St Anthony's College, Oxford (for: IV: 31, 32); and J. W. Scott, Librarian of University College, London, for the material in the George Orwell Archive. We are also deeply indebted to all those recipients of letters from Orwell, or their executors, who have been kind enough to make available the correspondence published in these volumes. We would like to thank the following publications for permission to reproduce material first published in their pages: Commentary; Encounter; the Evening Standard; Forward; Life; the Listener; the London Magazine; the Manchester Evening News; the New Leader (N.Y.); the New Statesman and Nation; the New Yorker; the New York Times Book Review; the Observer; Partisan Review; Peace News; the Socialist Leader; Time and Tide; The Times; Tribune; Wiadomosci. We would like to thank the following for allowing us to use material whose copyright they own: the executors of the late Frank Richards for his 'Reply to George Orwell' in Horizon; H. W. Wilson & Co. for Orwell's entry in Twentieth Century Authors; George Allen & Unwin Ltd for "The Rediscovery of Europe" from Talking to India; Professor George Woodcock and D. S. Savage for their contributions to the controversy "Pacifism and the War" in Partisan Review; Dr Alex Comfort for his contribution to the same controversy and for his "Letter to an American Visitor" in Tribune; William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd for The English People; the executors of the late James Agate for his contribution to the controversy in the Manchester Evening News; the executors of Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Oxford University Press for "Felix Randal"; Elek Books Ltd for the Introduction to Jack London's Love of Life; Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd for the Introduction to Leonard Merrick's The Position of Peggy Harper and the executors of the late Konni Zilliacus for his letters to Tribune. We would like to thank the following for their co-operation and invaluable help; Mrs Evelyn Anderson, the Hon. David Astor, Frank D. Barber, Dennis Ceilings, Dr Alex Comfort, Jack Common, Lettice Cooper, Stafford Cottman, Humphrey Dakin, Mrs John Deiner, Mrs William Dunn, Mrs T. S. Eliot, Dr McDonald Emslie, Faber and Faber Ltd, Mr and Mrs Francis Fierz, Roy Fuller, T. R. Fyvel, Livia Gollancz, Victor Gollancz Ltd, Mrs Arthur Goodman, A. S. F. Gow, James Hanley, Rayner Heppenstall, Inez Holden, Mrs Humphrey House, Mrs Lydia Jackson, Frank Jellinek, Dr Shirley E. Jones, Jon Kimche, Denys King-Farlow, Arthur Koestler, Mrs Georges Kopp, James Laughlin, F. A. Lea, John Lehmann, John McNair, Michael Meyer, Henry Miller, Raymond Mortimer, Mrs Middleton Murry, Mrs Rosalind Obermeyer, Laurence O'Shaughnessy, Partisan Review, Professor R. S. Peters, Ruth Fitter, Joyce Pritchard, Philip Rahv, Sir Herbert Read, Vernon Richards, the Rev. Herbert Rogers, the Hon. Sir Steven Runciman, Brenda Salkeld, John Sceats, Roger Senhouse, Stephen Spender, Oliver Stallybrass, Professor Gleb Struve, Julian Symons, F. J. Warburg and Professor George Woodcock. We would also like to thank: Angus Calder (for allowing us to consult his unpublished thesis on the Common Wealth Party); Howard Fink (for allowing us to consult his unpublished Chronology of Orwell's Loci and Activities); and I. R. Wilson (whose George Orwell: Some Materials for a Bibliography, School of Librarianship, London University, 1953, was indispensable). Finally, this edition would not have been possible but for the patient and understanding editorial help of Aubrey Davis and the support and help of the Library staff of University College London, particularly that of J. W. Scott, the Librarian, Margaret Skerl, Karen Bishop, Mrs Michael Kraushaar and Mrs Gordon Leitch. A Note on the Editing The contents are arranged in order of publication except where the time lag between writing and appearance in print is unusually large, when we have chosen the date of writing. There are one or two rare exceptions to this rule, generally made for the sake of illustrating the development in Orwell's thought, but a note at the end of each article or review states when, and in which publication, it appeared first.
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