George Orwell, 1903-1950
Biographical note
George Orwell was the pen name used by British author and journalist Eric Arthur Blair. During most of his professional life time Orwell was best known for his journalism, both in the British press and in books such as Homage to Catalonia, describing his activities during the Spanish Civil War, and Down and Out in Paris and London, describing a period of poverty in these cities.
Orwell is best remembered today for two of his novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Works
Copyright Warning
Under Australian copyright laws, copyright in literary works of authors, who died before 1955, has expired. These works are now within the ‘public domain’ in Australia and this is why the University is able to reproduce such works on this site. HOWEVER, works may remain copyrighted in other countries. If copyright in the work still subsists in the country from which you are accessing this website, it will be illegal for you to download the work. It is your responsibility to check the applicable copyright laws in your country.
In particular, the works of George Orwell are still under copyright in the United States and the European Union, and therefore users in those countries should not download these works.
Novels
- Burmese Days [1934]
- A Clergyman's Daughter [1935]
- Keep the Aspidistra Flying [1936]
- Coming up for Air [1939]
- Animal Farm [1945]
- Nineteen eighty-four [1949]
Autobiographical works
- Down and Out in Paris and London [1933]
- The Road to Wigan Pier [1937]
- Homage to Catalonia [1938]
- Autobiographical Note [1940]
Essays
- La Censure en Angleterre [1928]
- Burma [1928]
- A Farthing Newspaper [1928]
- Unemployment in England [1928]
- A Day in the Life of a Tramp [1929]
- Beggars in London [1929]
- John Galsworthy [1929]
- A Good 'Middle' [1930] (october)
- The Spike [1931]
- Poverty - Plain and Coloured [1931] (avril)
- A hanging [1931]
- Hop-Picking [1931]
- Clink [1932]
- Common Lodging Houses [1932]
- Bookshop memories [1936]
- Shooting an elephant [1936]
- My Country Right or Left [1936]
- Propagandist Critics [1936] (december)
- Spilling the Spanish beans [1937]
- Eye-witness in Barcelona [1937]
- Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party [1938]
- Political Reflections on the Crisis [1938]
- Will Gypsies Survive? [1938]
- Not Counting Niggers [1939]
- Democracy in the British Army [1939]
- The Spanish War [1939]
- Marrakech [1939]
- Charles Dickens [1940]
- New Words [1940]
- The Limit to Pessimism [1940]
- Notes on the Way [1940]
- Prophecies of Fascism [1940]
- Charles Reade [1940]
- The Proletarian Writer (Discussion between Orwell and Desmond Hawkins) [1940]
- Boys’ weeklies and Frank Richards’s reply [1940]
- Inside the Whale [1940]
- The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius [1941]
- The Art of Donald McGill [1941]
- Wells, Hitler and the world state [1941]
- The Frontiers of Art and Propaganda [1941]
- Tolstoy and Shakespeare [1941]
- The Meaning of a Poem [1941]
- Literature and Totalitarianism [1941]
- No, Not One [1941]
- Rudyard Kipling [1942]
- The Rediscovery of Europe [1942]
- The British Crisis: London Letter to Partisan Review [1942]
- Pacifism and the War [1942]
- B.B.C. Internal Memorandum [1942]
- Looking back on the Spanish war [1942]
- As I Please (1943-1947)
- W. B. Yeats [1943]
- Pamphlet Literature [1943]
- Literature and the Left [1943]
- Who Are the War Criminals? [1943]
- Mark Twain — the licensed jester [1943]
- Poetry and the microphone [1943]
- A Hundred Up [1944]
- Propaganda and Demotic Speech [1944]
- Benefit of clergy: Some notes on Salvador Dali [1944]
- Raffles and Miss Blandish [1944]
- Arthur Koestler [1944]
- Tobias Smollett [1944]
- A Controversy: Orwell: Agate [1944]
- Funny, But Not Vulgar [1944]
- Oysters and Brown Stout [1944]
- A New Year Message [1945]
- Antisemitism in Britain [1945]
- In defence of P. G. Wodehouse [1945]
- Notes on Nationalism [1945]
- Revenge is sour [1945]
- You and the Atomic Bomb [1945]
- What Is Science? [1945]
- Catastrophic Gradualism [1945]
- Good bad books [1945]
- Introduction to Love of Life and other stories by Jack London [1945]
- Through a Glass, Rosily [1945]
- Freedom of the park [1945]
- The sporting spirit [1945]
- Nonsense poetry [1945]
- Introduction to The Position of Peggy Harper by Leonard Merrick [1945]
- In Defence of English Cooking [1945]
- Future of a ruined Germany [1945]
- Critical Essays [1946]
- Why I write [1946]
- The prevention of literature [1946]
- Pleasure spots [1946]
- The Politics of Starvation [1946]
- Decline of the English murder [1946]
- A nice cup of tea [1946]
- Politics and the English Language [1946]
- The Moon Under Water [1946]
- Books vs. Cigarettes [1946]
- In Front of Your Nose [1946]
- Some thoughts on the common toad [1946]
- A good word for the Vicar of Bray [1946]
- Editorial to Polemic [1946]
- James Burnham and The Managerial Revolution [1946]
- Confessions of a book reviewer [1946]
- The Cost of Letters [1946]
- Politics vs. Literature: an examination of Gulliver’s Travels [1946]
- How the poor die [1946]
- Riding down from Bangor [1946]
- Lear, Tolstoy and the fool [1947]
- Such, such were the joys [1947]
- Burnham's View of the Contemporary World Struggle [1947]
- Toward European Unity [1947]
- In Defence of Comrade Zilliacus [1948]
- Writers and Leviathan [1948]
- George Gissing [1948]
- The Freedom Defence Committee [1948]
- Writers and Leviathan [1948]
- Reflections on Gandhi [1949]
- Conrad's Place and Rank in English Letters [1949]
- The Question of the Pound Award [1949]
Reviews
- Review of Herman Melville by Lewis Mumford [1930]
- Review of Alexander Pope by Edith Sitwell, etc [1930]
- Review of Angel Pavement by J. B. Priestley [1930] (october)
- Review of The Two Carlyles by Osbert Burdett [1931] (march)
- Review of The Spirit of Catholicism by Karl Adam [1932]
- Review of Byron and the Need of Fatality by Charles du Bos [1932]
- Review of Caliban Shrieks by Jack Hilton [1935] (march)
- Review of Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller [1935] (november)
- Review of Spanish Testament by Arthur Koestler [1938]
- Review of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler [1940]
- Review of Personal Record by Julien Green [1940]
- Review of The Totalitarian Enemy by Franz Borkenau [1940]
- Review of Landfall by by Nevil Shute; Nailcruncher by Albert Cohen, translated from the French by Vyvyan Holland [1940]
- Review of The Sword and the Sickle by Mulk Raj Anand [1942]
- Review of Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages by T. S. Eliot [1942]
- Review of The British Way in Warfare by B. H. Liddell Hart [1942]
- Review of Beggar My Neighbour by Lionel Fielden [1943]
- Review of Collected Poems by W. H. Davies [1943]
- Review of The Edge of the Abyss by Alfred Noyes [1944]
- Review of The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek, etc. [1944]
- Review of The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith [1944]
- Review of The Unquiet Grave by "Palinurus" [1945]
- Review of The Nigger of the Narcissus etc by Joseph Conrad [1945]
- Review of Drumu under the Windows by Sean O'Casey [1945]
- Review of The Prussian Officer and Other Stories by D.H. Lawrence [1945]
- Review of A Coat of Many Colours: Occasional Essays by Herbert Read [1945]
- Review of We by E.I. Zamyatin [1946]
- Review of The Reilly Plan by Lawrence Wolfe [1946]
- Review of The Democrat at the Supper Table by Colm Brogan [1946]
- Review of The Cosmological Eye by Henry Miller [1946]
- Review of The Story of Burma by F. Tennyson Jesse [1946]
- Review of The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade [1946]
- Review of The Soul of Man under Socialism by Oscar Wilde [1948]
- Review of The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene [1948]
- Review of Great Morning by Osbert Sitwell [1948]
- Review of Portrait of the Antisemite by Jean-Paul Sartre [1948]
- Review of Notes towards the Definition of Culture by T.S. Eliot [1948]
- Review of Their Finest Hour by Winston S. Churchill [1949]
Collections
- Inside the Whale and other essays [1940]
- Critical Essays [1946]
- Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays [1950]
- England Your England and Other Essays [1953] (Such, Such Were the Joys)
- A Collection of Essays by George Orwell [1954]
- The Orwell Reader, Fiction, Essays, and Reportage [1956]
- Selected Essays [1957]
- Collected Essays [1961]