George Orwell the Essayist: Literature, Politics and the Periodical Culture

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George Orwell is acclaimed as one of English literature's great essayists. Yet, while many are considered classics, as a body of work his essays have been neglected. Peter Marks provides the first sustained study of Orwell the essayist, giving these compelling pieces the critical attention they merit. Orwell employed the essay as a tool to entertain, illuminate and provoke readers across an array of topics. Marks situates the essays in their original contexts, exploring how journals influenced the type of essay Orwell wrote. Acknowledging this periodical culture helps explain the tactics Orwell employed, the topics he chose and the audiences he addressed. Orwell's first and last published works were essays, providing evidence of the development of his cultural and political views over two decades. Essays helped him fashion his distinctive literary voice' and Mark traces how their afterlife contributes to Orwell's posthumous reputation. Arguing the essays are central to Orwell's enduring literary, political and cultural value, Marks shows how we understand the complexities, subtleties, and contradictions of Orwell better when we understand his essays.

Reviews

This is the definitive, detailed narrative analysis of Orwell the essayist we have been waiting for. Peter Marks's book is a fine, original addition to Orwell criticism, a work of genuine scholarship and integrity, true to the spirit of Orwell's own writing. -- Professor Gillian Fenwick, Trinity College, University of Toronto, Canada
In an age dominated by the novel, the periodical essay has become very much a poor relation on the literary scene. Yet some of our finest writers have traditionally used the form to consider key issues of cultural, social and political import. Foremost among these is George Orwell, and Peter Marks has done this currently under-rated writer an immense service in this major new study of the whole of Orwell's literary and political journalism through the three decades of his writing, situating it comprehensively within the biographical, historical and publishing contexts of its production. Whether examining his responses to the complexities of left-wing infighting in the 1930s, the debates about national identity and political renewal of the war years, or the strains and divided loyalties of the Cold War era, Marks is a massively well-informed and reliable guide not only to the permanent value of Orwell's non-fiction prose but also to the pressures and priorities of the age in which he wrote. This study goes a long way towards restoring Orwell's reputation as both a practitioner of English prose and an astute and long-sighted commentator on British culture and society. -- Stan Smith, Professor Emeritus in English, Nottingham Trent University, UK

Author Bio

Peter Marks is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Sydney, Australia. He wrote British Filmmakers: Terry Gilliam (Manchester University Press, 2009), co-edited Literature and the Contemporary (Longmans, 1999) and has written articles and chapters on such topics as George Orwell, the essay, 1930s British and American literature, periodicals, surveillance, and film adaptation.