With such varied correspondents as T. S. Eliot, Stephen Spender and Anthony Powell, for nearly forty years George Orwell wrote and received the letters that are now collected together in A Life in Letters, edited with an introduction by Peter Davison in Penguin Modern Classics.
Personal as well as political, Orwell's letters offer a fascinating window into the mind of a phenomenal man. We are privy to snatched glimpses of his family life: his son Richard's developing teeth, the death of his wife Eileen, and his own illness. Candid portraits of Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, his opinions on bayonets, and on the chaining of German prisoners display his magnificent talent as a political writer, and letters to friends and his publisher provide a unique...
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.
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Schooled in Colorado and at Harvard and Cambridge, and long a resident of Boston, Peter Davison is known as one of the foremost poetry editors, especially in his work for Houghton Mifflin Company and the Atlantic Monthly. In addition to the explorations in his nine books of poetry, he has recorded his memoirs in Half Remembered: A Personal History and in The Fading Smile: Poets in Boston, 1955–1960, from Robert Frost to Robert Lowell to Sylvia Plath.
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