Orwell as Reviewer and Essayist

Abstract

Spain, with its twin inheritance of ‘memories that are mostly evil’ and ‘more belief in the decency of human beings’, was to haunt Orwell for several years. His letters and reviews on his return are full of the agony of Spain, its sufferings, and those of his colleagues in filthy gaols facing an uncertain future. If (and the conditional mood is important), if Down and Out in Paris and London was in part an exorcism of his experience of and contribution to imperialism, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, his post-1937 essays and reviews, and his practical political work, especially with the Freedom Defence Committee, helped to justify that Spanish experience. Nothing better exemplifies the bitterness Orwell felt in the months after his return than a letter that has recently come to light. Andy Croft, working on a critical biography of Randall Swingler, discovered in Swingler’s papers Orwell’s reply to Nancy Cunard requesting him to contribute to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War, published by Left Review in 1937.¹ The pamphlet published statements by 148 writers, mostly supporting the Government. Orwell’s reply is angry, even intemperate. It starts, ‘Will you please stop sending me this bloody rubbish’, and includes offensive personal abuse of Stephen Spender. Croft remarks, ‘it is worth remembering just what a bad-tempered and offensive writer [Orwell] could be, and just how awkward his anti-communism once made everyone feel’.