George Orwell Studies Volume 7/1

GOS serves up another feast of Orwellian features

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Another doubleplusgood feast of Orwellian articles appears in the latest issue (Volume 7, Number 1) of George Orwell Studies. In a seminal paper, Angela Smith builds on her excellent talk to The Orwell Society AGM about the important place Sunderland Church High School played in the life of Eileen O’Shaughnessy. German scholar Dominic Angeloch examines Orwell’s representation of social reality, taking a close look at Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier.

Carol Biederstadt considers the implications of the parallels between Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’ and several of the works by Reginald Campbell. Timothy Foster, photographer and film-maker based in London, returned to his home-town, Wigan, some eighty years after Orwell ventured North to research the plight of the poor, unemployed and miners. Here, he reflects on his experience.

In a remarkable piece of ‘literary archaeology’, Les Hurst lists all the references to authors and titles mentioned by Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier. And you will surprised at the list’s length. Douglas Kerr expands on his Orwell Society ‘George Talk’, dissecting Orwell’s poem ‘St Andrew’s Day 1935’ while John Newsinger contributes an article ‘Why he joined the ILP: Orwell, Brockway and the struggle for Socialism’.

John Rodden traces the fate of the Disinformation Governance Board, set up by President Biden in April 2022 and shut down within two months, having been lambasted from all sides as an Orwellian ‘Big Brother’ operation. And Darcy Moore’s article tackles the intriguing question: why is Orwell’s work so infested with rats?

• George Orwell Studies, which is completely independent of The Orwell Society, is edited by Tim Crook and Richard Lance Keeble. For subscription details, see http://www.abramis.co.uk/george-orwell-studies/subs.htm.

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