George Orwell is a major figure in twentieth-century literature. The author of Down and Out in Paris and London, Nineteen Eighty-four, and Animal Farm, he published ten books and two collections of essays during his lifetime—but in terms of actual words, produced much more than seems possible for someone who died at the age of forty-six and was often struggling against poverty and ill health. His essays, letters, and journalism are among the most memorable, lucid, and intelligent ever written, the work of a master craftsman and a brilliant mind. Taken as a whole they form an essential collection, and read in toto and sequentially, they provide a remarkably literary self-portrait of an engaged, and consistently engaging, writer. Here, in four volumes, is the best selection of his nonfiction writing now available, a trove of letters, essays, reviews, and journalism that is breathtaking in its scope and eclectic passions. An Age Like This collects Orwell's essential early writings, including material that would later emerge in Down and Out in Paris and London, as well as observations on marriage, reviews of Henry Miller and J. B. Priestley, reports from the Spanish Civil War, an examination of the meaning and value of Charles Dickens, and notes on the early years of the Second World War.

My Country Right or Left features notes and essays on the Second World War (including two war diaries), reflections on life working for the BBC, reviews of Hitlers Mein Kampf and books by T.S. Eliot, Orwell's "London Letters" to the Partisan Review, and his famous analysis of the English character, "The Lion and the Unicorn." —From the 2000 edition.

Featuring the column Orwell wrote for the Socialist weekly Tribune (where he was the literary editor), As I Please also includes Orwell's spirited defense of English cooking, notes on the perfect cup of tea, and accounts of the difficulties with - and ultimate success of - Animal Farm. —From the 2000 edition.

In Front of Your Nose features Orwell's final writings, including extracts from his manuscript notebook, as well as details of his remarriage and adoption of a son, notes on the writing and publication of Nineteen Eighty-four, as well as reviews of books by Jean-Paul Sartre and Graham Greene, an examination of politics and literature in Gulliver's Travels, and the hidden meanings of "nonsense poetry." —From the 2000 edition.