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Paperback
Published: 5th October 1969
Paperback
Published: 30th August 2018
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Published: 28th February 2001
Paperback
Published: 29th October 2024
Coming Up For Air
By (Author) George Orwell
Vintage Publishing
Harvill Secker
30th August 2018
United Kingdom
Paperback
254
Width 153mm, Height 234mm, Spine 19mm
356g
Volume 7 of The Complete Works of George Orwell Volume 7 of The Complete Works of George Orwell;;Coming Up for Air looks back from the sprawl of thirties housing estates, new arterial roads and the domination of the motor car, to an idealised golden England, largely rural and unmechanised when, in the nostalgia of childhood, it was 'summer. . . always summer'. It looks forward to the destruction wrought by air-raids (though written in 1938-1939, war is expected in 1941) leading to 'The world we're going down into, the kind of hate-world, slogan-world. . the rubber truncheons. . the posters with enormous faces' that will be Nineteen Eighty-Four. Yet, despite its sense of loss and its grim foreboding, Coming Up for Air is a very funny book, with a rich sense of the incongruity of life and people, and it is illuminated by Orwell's wry, sardonic wit in which there is not a little self-parody.
George Orwell (1903-1950) is one of England's most famous writers and social commentators. He is the author of the classic political satire Animal Farm and the dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is also well known for his essays and journalism, particularly his works covering his travels and his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War. His writing is celebrated for its piercing clarity, purpose and wit and his books continue to be bestsellers all over the world.