Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.

Evelyn Waugh

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George Orwell

Volume 20 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
In 'Reflections on Gandhi', published in January 1949, in which he modified the strictures made in a previous review, Orwell wrote, 'our job is to make life worth living on this earth, which is the only earth we have'. 
 
While a patient at the Cotswold Sanatorium, Cranham, he read the proofs of Nineteen Eighty-Four and wrote five reviews. He began, but did not finish, an article on Evelyn Waugh, made notes for an essay on Conrad, and sketched out a long short-story, 'A Smoking-Room Story'. 
 
The volume includes many unpublished letters, Warburg's report on his visit to Cranham, a clarification of Orwell's public statement on Nineteen Eighty-Four, and a detailed examination, with all the relevant correspondence, of Orwell's relationship with the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office. Two of the last items are a cheerful letter from Nancy Parratt, one of his BBC secretaries, and a letter from Sonia Orwell (whom Orwell had married a few weeks after he was transferred to University College Hospital, London). 
 
The volume concludes with a series of appendices. These print all work in progress; a statement of Orwell's accounts; a list of the 144 books he read in 1949; Orwell's will and final instructions for his literary executors; the names in his address book; those he considered cryptos or fellow-travellers; a list of books he owned and another of his pamphlet collection; an unpublished memoir by Miranda wood; and a note of what happened after Orwell's death on 21 January 1950.

Our Job Is To Make Life Worth Living

Volume 17 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
On 29 March 1945, Orwell's wife Eileen died, aged 39. Her last, long, very moving letters to her husband are printed here. Less than six months later the novel that she might be said to have nurtured and which gave Orwell world-wide fame, Animal Farm, was published. For a little over three months Orwell worked as a War Correspondent for the Observer and the Manchester Evening News. As well as 74 books specifically reviewed, many others were discussed briefly in essays and in his column 'As I Please'. 'Politics and the English Language', one of Orwell's most important essays, was immediately reprinted for journalists of the Observer and News of the World as a guide to good writing. His defence of P.G. Wodehouse, printed here, was written at a time when Wodehouse was still under a cloud. Essays and articles he wrote for the Observer, Manchester Evening News and Evening Standard are reprinted; correspondence shows he had written the first twelve pages of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Eileen's will and Orwell's first notes for his literary executor are also reproduced. Orwell kept a careful account of what he earned to assist in making his income tax return. Only one such record has survived (for 12 July 1943 to 31 December 1945) and it is reproduced here, fully annotated.

I Belong To The Left

1945

Volume 10 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
This volume begins with Orwell's letters home from prep school and the stories, poems and contributions to college publications he wrote at Eton, including the play King Charles II which features in A Clergyman's Daughter as Charles I. The sketches that led to Burmese Days are reprinted, along with articles and essays on poverty, censorship and imperialist exploitation first published in Paris 1928-29. In 1930 the first of his reviews were published, while in 1931 his first important essay, 'A Hanging', appeared. Also included is correspondence dealing with publication of Down and Out in Paris and London and the censorship of Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter and Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Orwell's introduction to Down and Out in Paris and London is included in English and the original French version, and the volume concludes with the research material for The Road to Wigan Pier and an analysis of what Orwell was paid for writing the book.

A Kind Of Compulsion

1903 - 1936

Volume 19 of The Complete Works of George Orwell 
 
Much of 1947 and 1948 was taken up with Orwell's struggle to complete Nineteen Eighty-Four and his fight against illness. He wrote 'Arthur Koestler', 'Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool', and his last contribution to Tribune, his eightieth 'As I Please'. The second half of 1948 was spent at Jura where, by a supreme effort, and often in great pain, he managed to complete Nineteen Eighty-Four. 
 
He was admitted to hospital and continued to work on 'Such, Such Were the Joys'; among the essays he wrote were 'Towards European Unity', 'Profile of Krishna Menon', 'Writers and Leviathan', 'Britain's Left-Wing Press', 'George Gissing', 'Britain's Struggle for Survival: The Labour Government after Three Years', and 'Marx and Russia'; and he continued to review. 
 
Changes made in the course of the production of Orwell's radio version of Animal Farm are listed; his second Literary Notebook is reproduced and his third series of notes for his literary executor. This volume is rich in previously unpublished correspondence and includes Fredric Warburg's and David Farrer's reports on Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell's attempt to secure justice for those unfairly treated is also well illustrated.

It Is What I Think

1947 - 1948

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