By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Nineteen Eighty-Four is the best-known work of George Orwell (1903-50), who, as well as writing two of the most enduring novels of the 1940s, was also one of the greatest essayists of the first half of the twentieth century. Orwell’s dystopian vision of a […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Shooting an Elephant’ is a curious work in George Orwell’s canon. It is often reprinted with his essays, but in some ways Orwell’s account of his time working as a policeman in Burma can be regarded as closer to a short story than a […]
Eric Arthur Blair (1903-50), who is better-known to the world as George Orwell, was one of the leading English essayists of the first half of the twentieth century, writing about everything from the Spanish Civil War to the ideal pub to how to make a perfect cup of tea. Of […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, completed in 1948 and published a year later, is a classic example of dystopian fiction. Indeed, it’s surely the most famous dystopian novel in the world, even if its ideas are known by far more people than have actually read […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Prevention of Literature’ is perhaps George Orwell’s most famous essay defending freedom of expression. Published in January 1946 in Polemic, the essay sees Orwell calling upon intellectuals of all backgrounds and disciplines to stand up against literary censorship of various kinds.