Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays - Hardcover

Orwell, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151013616 ISBN 13: 9780151013616

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008

Synopsis

George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist. From his earliest published article in 1928 to his untimely death in 1950, he produced an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected—and illuminated—the fraught times in which he lived and wrote. "As soon as he began to write something," comments George Packer in his foreword to this new two-volume collection, "it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge—in short, to think—as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent."

Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell's development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites classics such as "Shooting an Elephant" with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell's boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these narrative essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex.

About this title

Book Description

HMH Hardcover, 2008, Previous ISBN: 978-0-15-101361-6

From the Back Cover

The essential collection of narrative essays from a 20th century master

George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist, producing throughout his life an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected--and illuminated--the fraught times in which he lived. "As soon as he began to write something," comments George Packer in his foreword, "it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge--in short, to think--as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent."

Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell's development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites such classics as "Shooting an Elephant" with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell's boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex.

"Reaffirm[s] the author's status as one of the definitive essayists in English literature."--Los Angeles Times

GEORGE ORWELL (1903 1950) served with the Imperial Police in Burma, fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and was a member of the Home Guard and a writer for the BBC during World War II. He is the author of many works of nonfiction and fiction.

GEORGE PACKERis a staff writer for the New Yorker and author of The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq and other works. He lives in Brooklyn.

Also in this series: All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

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About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0151013616
• ISBN 13: 9780151013616
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 308