Orwell in Spain

image

Orwell in Spain

The Full Text of Homage to Catalonia with Associated Articles,
Reviews and Letters from The Complete Works of George Orwell

Edited by Peter Davison
Introduction by Christopher Hitchens

Image
BookishMall.com

Contents

Introduction

Editorial Note

Acknowledgements

Orwell’s Journey to Spain

Extract from ‘As I Please’, 42 [The journey to Spain], Tribune, 15 September 1944

Jennie Lee to Margaret M. Goalby, 23 June 1950: Orwell’s Arrival in Barcelona

Orwell in Spain, December 1936

Extract from letter from Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore, 31 January 1937

‘British Author with the Militia’, The Spanish Revolution: Bulletin of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification (POUM)

Letter from Eileen Blair to her mother, 22 March 1937

Letter to Eileen Blair [5? April 1937]

Extract from letter from Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore, 12 April 1937

Letter from Eileen Blair to her brother, Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy, 1 May 1937

Extract from letter to Victor Gollancz, 1 May 1937

Orwell’s Wound

Letter to Cyril Connolly, 8 June 1937

Letter from Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy, c. 10 June 1937

Escape from Spain

Reports on Eric and Eileen Blair to Tribunal for Espionage and High Treason, Valencia

Report on Charles Doran

Homage to Catalonia

‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’, New English Weekly, 29 July and 2 September 1937

Letter from Eileen Blair to John McNair, 29 July 1937

Letter from George Kopp to Dr Laurence O’Shaughnessy, 7 July 1937

Letter from George Kopp to Lt.-Col. Burillo, Chief of Police, Barcelona, 7 July 1937 (translation)

Letter from George Kopp to Eileen Blair, 8 July 1937

Review: Franz Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit; John Sommerfield, Volunteer in Spain, 31 July 1937

Letter to Rayner Heppenstall, 31 July 1937

‘Eye-Witness in Barcelona’, Controversy, August 1937

Abstracts of Reports on the Spanish Civil War in the Daily Worker and News Chronicle, 1936–7

Letter to Amy Charlesworth, 1 August 1937

Letter to Charles Doran, 2 August 1937

Unpublished response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War, 3–6 August 1937

Letter to Geoffrey Gorer, 15 September 1937

Review: Mary Low and Juan Brea, Red Spanish Notebook; R. Timmermans, Heroes of the Alcazar; Martin Armstrong, Spanish Circus, 9 October 1937

Letter to H. N. Brailsford, 10 December 1937

Review: Mairin Mitchell, Storm Over Spain ; Arnold Lunn, Spanish Rehearsal ; E. Allison Peers, Catalonia Infelix; José Castillejo, Wars of Ideas in Spain ; José Ortega y Gasset, Invertebrate Spain, 11 December 1937

Letter from H. N. Brailsford to Orwell, 17 December 1937

Letter to H. N. Brailsford, 18 December 1937

Review: G. L. Steer, The Tree of Gernika ; Arthur Koestler, Spanish Testament, 5 February 1938

Letter to the Editor, Time and Tide: ‘“Trotskyist” Publications’, 5 February 1938

Letter to Raymond Mortimer, 9 February 1938

Letter to Stephen Spender, 2 April 1938

Letter to Geoffrey Gorer, 18 April 1938

‘Notes on the Spanish Militias’

To the Editor, The Times Literary Supplement, 14 May 1938

Letter from Sir Richard Rees to Orwell, 25 May 1938

Letter to the Editor, The Listener, 16 June 1938

Review: Robert Sencourt, Spain’s Ordeal ; Anonymous, Franco’s Rule, 23 June 1938

Review: Frank Jellinek, The Civil War in Spain, 8 July 1938

Review: The Duchess of Atholl, Searchlight on Spain, 16 July 1938

Letter to the Editor, Manchester Guardian, 5 August 1938

Letter to Yvonne Davet, 18 August 1938

Letter to Raymond Postgate, 21 October 1938

Summary of article from La Flèche, 14 October 1938

Review: E. Allison Peers, The Church in Spain, 1737–1937; Eoin O’Duffy, Crusade in Spain, 24 November 1938

Letter to Frank Jellinek, 20 December 1938

‘Release of George Kopp’, Independent News, 23 December 1938

‘Caesarean Section in Spain’, The Highway, March 1939

Letter to Yvonne Davet, 19 June 1939

Review: Nancy Johnstone, Hotel in Flight, December 1939

Review: S. Casado, The Last Days of Madrid ; T. C. Worsley, Behind the Battle, 20 January 1940

Review: E. Allison Peers, The Spanish Dilemma ; Charles Duff, A Key to Victory: Spain, 21 December 1940

Extract from War-time Diary, 22 January 1941

Review: Arturo Barea, The Forge, September 1941

Extract from letter to Partisan Review, 23 September 1941

Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 22 [Comparison with the Spanish Civil War], 16 May 1942

‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’ [1942?], New Road, January 1943?

Proposed BBC Broadcast on the Spanish Civil War, 3 December 1942

Review: E. Allison Peers, Spain in Eclipse, 1937–1943; Lawrence Dundas, Behind the Spanish Mask, 28 November 1943

Extract from ‘As I Please’, 10 [How the lie becomes truth], Tribune, 4 February 1944

‘The Eight Years of War: Spanish Memories’, Observer, 16 July 1944

Review: Charles d’Ydewalle, An Interlude in Spain, 24 December 1944

Review: Arturo Barea, The Clash, 24 March 1946

Orwell’s Pamphlet Collection: Spanish Civil War

A summary of letters from and to David Astor, 4 and 5 March 1949

Further Reading

BookishMall.com

Orwell in Spain

‘One of the most influential English writers of the twentieth century’ Robert McCrum, Observer

‘A prophet who thought the unthinkable and spoke the unspeakable, even when it offended conventional thought’ Peter Grosvenor, Daily Express

‘He saw through everything because he could also see through himself. Many writers and journalists have tried to imitate his particular kind of clarity without possessing anything like his moral authority’ Peter Ackroyd, The Times

‘Orwell’s innocent eye was often devastatingly perceptive… a man who looked at his world with wonder and wrote down exactly what he saw, in admirable prose’ John Mortimer, Evening Standard

‘Matchlessly sharp and fresh… The clearest and most compelling English prose style this century’ John Carey, Sunday Times

‘It is impossible not to be elated by his literary and political writing – and enraged by what he was up against… the most lovable of writers, someone whose books can make the reader long for his company’ Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Spectator

‘His intellectual honesty was a virtue… it wasn’t just the amount of truth he told but the way he told it, in prose transmuted to poetry by the pressure of his dedication’ Clive James, New Yorker

‘The finest English essayist of his century… He made it his business to tell the truth at a time when many contemporaries believed that history had ordained the lie… His work endures, as lucid and vigorous as the day it was written’ Paul Gray, Time

ERIC ARTHUR BLAIR (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police Force in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). Several years of poverty followed. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as a private tutor, schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles to a number of periodicals. Down and Out in Paris and London was published in 1933. In 1936 he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) is a powerful description of the poverty he saw there. At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and was wounded. Homage to Catalonia is his account of the civil war. He was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco and there wrote Coming Up for Air.