Main works of non-fiction and novels – external links

• Down and Out in Paris and London (9 January 1933, Victor Gollancz Ltd)
• Burmese Days (October 1934, Harper & Brothers)
• A Clergyman’s Daughter (11 March 1935, Victor Gollancz Ltd)
• Keep the Aspidistra Flying (20 April 1936, Victor Gollancz Ltd)
• The Road to Wigan Pier (February 1937, Left Book Club Edition; 8 March 1937 Victor Gollancz Ltd edition for the general public)
• Homage to Catalonia (25 April 1938, Secker and Warburg)
• Coming Up for Air (12 June 1939, Victor Gollancz Ltd)
• Animal Farm (17 August 1945, Secker and Warburg)
• Nineteen Eighty-Four (8 June 1949, Secker and Warburg)

The above link to the detailed studies of each title on Wikipedia.

 

Collected editions

Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus edited a four volume collection of Orwell’s writings, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, divided into four volumes (Secker and Warburg, 1968, hb; Penguin Books, 1970, pb):

• An Age Like This 1920–1940
• My Country Right or Left 1940–1943
• As I Please, 1943–1945
• In Front of Your Nose, 1945–1950

The Complete Works of George Orwell is a twenty-volume series, with the first nine being devoted to the non-fiction books and novels published in Orwell’s lifetime, and the final eleven volumes entitled:

• A Kind of Compulsion: 1903–1936
• Facing Unpleasant Facts: 1937–1939
• A Patriot After All: 1940–1941
• All Propaganda Is Lies: 1941–1942
• Keeping Our Little Corner Clean: 1942–1943
• Two Wasted Years: 1943
• I Have Tried to Tell the Truth: 1943–1944
• I Belong to the Left: 1945
• Smothered Under Journalism: 1946
• It Is What I Think: 1947–1948
• Our Job Is to Make Life Worth Living: 1949–1950

A twenty-first volume appeared in 2010 as more material was discovered, including letters by Eileen Blair:

• The Lost Orwell, Ed. Peter Davision (Timewell Press)

Two essay collections were published during Orwell’s lifetime.

• Inside the Whale and Other Essays in 1940
• Critical Essays in 1946

Many essays and collections of essays have been published since Orwell’s death.

George Orwell, The Complete Novels is available as an E-book in the UK. The texts are those established by Peter Davison in the Complete Works.

The final eleven books of the Complete Works plus The Lost Orwell are available in the UK as an E-book, George Orwell, The Collected Non-Fiction.

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Eric Blair and Eileen O’Shaughnessy married in 1936.

 

• Eileen O’Shaughnessy, in Her Own Words: The Complete Letters of George Orwell’s Wife, edited by Angela Smith and Sylvia Topp (London, 2026: Palgrave Macmillan)

NB: This volume is a complete works, not a ‘Complete Letters’

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Biographies and Studies

• Bowker, Gordon, George Orwell, Abacus, London:, 2009.
• Bright-Holmes, John ed., Like It Was The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge, Collins, London, 1981.
• Buddicom, Jacintha, Eric & Us. The Postscript Edition.  (Finlay Publisher 2006) **
• Carter, Miranda, Anthony Blunt His Lives, Pan Books, London, 2002.
• Colls, Robert, George Orwell English Rebel, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013.
• Coppard, Audrey and Crick, Bernard, Orwell Remembered, Ariel, London, 1984.**
• Crick, Bernard George Orwell: A Life, Penguin, London, 1981.
• Davison, Peter, George Orwell A Literary Life, MacMillan Press, Basingstoke, 1996.
• Fyvel, Tosco, George Orwell a personal memoir, Hutchinson, London, 1983.**
• Hitchens, Christopher, Why Orwell Matters (Basic Books, 2002) (also published as Orwell’s Victory)
• Ingrams, Richard, Muggeridge The Biography, HarperCollins, London, 1995.
• Keeble, Richard Lance, George Orwell, the Secret State and the Making of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Abramis, Bury St Edmunds, 2020.
• Lewis, Jeremy, David Astor A Life in Print, Jonathan Cape, London, 2016.
• Lynskey, Dorian, The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell’s 1984, picador, London, 2019.
• Meyers, Jeffrey, George Orwell: The Critical Heritage, Routledge, 1975. Contemporary reviews of Orwell’s books.
• Meyers, Jeffrey, Orwell Wintry Conscience of a Generation, W.W. Norton, New York, 2001.
• Plante, David, Difficult Women a memoir of three, Futura, London, 1984. (Sonia Orwell)***
• Powell, Antony, To Keep the Ball Rolling Volume 1 Infants of the Spring, Heinemann, London, 1976.**
• Potts, Paul, Dante Called You Beatrice, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1961.**
• Rees, Richard, George Orwell Fugitive From The Camp Of Victory, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1962.**
• Rodden, John, The Politics of Literary Reputation The Making and Claiming of ‘St George’ Orwell, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1989.
• Rodden, John, The Unexamined Orwell, Austin: University of Texas Press, Austin, 2011.
• Rodden, John, Becoming George Orwell: Life and Letters, Legend and Legacy, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 2020.
• Scammell, Michael, Koestler The Indispensable Intellectual, Faber and Faber, London, 2010.
• Shelden, Michael, Friends of Promise, Minerva, London, 1995.
• Shelden, Michael, Orwell The Authorised Biography, Minerva, London, 1992.
• Solnit, Rebecca, Orwell’s Roses, Granta, London, 2022.
• Spender, Stephen, The Thirties and After, Fontana Collins, Glasgow,1978.
• Stansky, Peter, The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War, Stanford University Press, 2023
• Spurling, Hilary, The Girl from the Fiction Department A Portrait of Sonia Orwell, Hamish Hamilton, London, 2002.***
• Steinhoff, William, The Road to 1984, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1975.
• Taylor, D.J., Orwell, Chatto & Windus, London, 2003.
• Taylor, D.J., Orwell The New Life, Constable, London, 2023.
• Taylor, D.J, The Lost Girls — Love and Literature in Wartime London, Pegasus, London, 2020.
• Topp, Sylvia, Eileen: The Making of George Orwell, Unbound, London, 2020. (Eileen Blair)
• Wadhams, Stephen, Remembering Orwell, Penguin Books, Ontario, 1984.**
• Wadhams, Stephen, The Orwell Tapes, Locarno Press, Ontario, 2017. (A new edition of Remembering Orwell)**
• Warburg, Fredric, Some Authors Are More Equal Than Others, Hutchinson, London, 1973.**
• West, W.J. (1992) The Larger Evils: Nineteen Eighty-Four the Truth Behind the Satire, Canongate Press, Edinburgh, 1992.
• Williams, Raymond, Orwell, Fontana/Collins, London, 1971. (Updated edition, 1984)
• Wilson, Les, Orwell’s Island, George, Jura and 1984, Saraband, Glasgow 2023.
• Woodcock, George, The Crystal Spirit A Study of George Orwell, Fourth Estate, London, 1984. **

** These titles were written by, or include memoirs of, those who knew George Orwell in his lifetime

*** Written by those who knew Sonia Orwell in her lifetime

Fiction:

• Bissell, Norman, Barnhill a novel, Luath Press, Edinburgh, 2019.
• Caute, David, Dr Orwell and Mr Blair, Phoenix, London, 1995.
• Glover, Dennis, The Last Man in Europe, New York: Harry N. Abrams, New York, 2017.
• Theroux, Paul, Burma Sahib, London: Penguin, 2024

(Our thanks to Norman Bissell who prepared the above lists)

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• Darcy Moore’s Orwell Studies Library, organised by subject area

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