Record Entries for Dystopian Fiction Prize Professor Richard Lance Keeble reports that the 2019 Orwell Society Dystopian Fiction Prize has now closed, with a record number of entries being received. There have been 50% more entries than last year, with students from universities and colleges in England and Scotland submitting work. Our three…Read more Record Entries 2019
Continuing our series on George Orwell and Pamphlet literature. George Orwell continued to follow the Signpost Booklets on Post-War Problems in his As I Please column. In his 19th January 1945 column, which was divided into four parts, one part consisted of two short paragraphs: "‘Today there are only eighty people in the United Kingdom,…Read more Hogg on Income
In the later part of the Second World War in Britain, and despite the existence of the war-time coalition government, a group of Conservative politicians - many of them Members of Parliament, others with special knowledge, and some who wished to remain anonymous - began to circulate ideas for the forthcoming peace through the "Signpost…Read more Pickthorn’s Principles
So wonderfully insightful into Orwell the man and his writings Richard Lance Keeble pays tribute to Orwell biographer Gordon Bowker who died in January 2019 In the Preface of his biography of George Orwell (London: Little Brown, 2003) Gordon Bowker sets out his ambitions with these perceptive comments: Orwell himself was a man with deep…Read more Gordon Bowker
In his forthcoming novel, Barnhill, Norman Bissell explores the final years and possible thoughts of George Orwell. In this extract, exclusive to the Orwell Society, Bissell takes us into Orwell's last hours. * 21 January 1950, University College Hospital, London I fell asleep early last night and woke up again after midnight. Now I…Read more The Dark, Cold Day
Rebel? Prophet? Relic? Perspectives on George Orwell in 2019 University College London (UCL) 24-25 May 2019 Calls for papers. * Booking via Eventbrite *
In 1945 George Orwell reviewed his career and wrote notes to his literary executor: two of his novels should never be republished. The first was A Clergyman's Daughter. The other was Keep the Aspidistra Flying ('Aspidistra') which he described as a ‘silly potboiler’ he should never have written. By 1945 Aspidistra had already sunk without…Read more Keep The Aspidistra Flying
