George Orwell in ‘The Listener’
The Listener was the weekly intellectual journal published by the BBC. Like its more politically involved rivals The Spectator and New Statesman and Nation it carried articles (many in the case of The Listener derived from broadcast material), but also independently commissioned works, reviews, and the lighter entertainment columns of the day such as crosswords and literary competitions. One can see this distinction in the case of George Orwell’s appearance in the magazine: articles and transcriptions of broadcasts on the one part, and book reviews printed and never broadcast on the other. Book reviews, commissioned by the literary editor of the magazine J. R. Ackerley, by Orwell appeared several years before he began broadcasting.
Orwell’s letters reveal that he had been a keen and involved listener since the early 1930s, and Professor Peter Davison in the Complete Works prints a letter from Orwell published in the New English Weekly on May 5th, 1932 in which he not only discussed the subject of a broadcast but comments on the difference in effect made on the listener-in and the reader of a transcript. Orwell wrote:
‘Those who listened-in on that night will agree that the “Listener” gives only the feeblest idea of Sir Arthur’s panegyric, which lasted for five or ten minutes, and was delivered in lachrymose tones and in a style that recalled Cleopatra lamenting over the corpse of Antony.’
From the subjects of his reviews one can see that Ackerley used Orwell for his knowledge of India, Burma and the Raj, but also (perhaps as Orwell’s confidence in his Hertfordshire garden grew) on country matters.
Of Orwell’s seven broadcasts re-printed in The Listener, six are well-known as Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus reprinted them in the Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters (1968), along with one or two of the reviews. Orwell’s review of The Pub and the People along with his essay ‘The Moon Under Water’ continue to be associated. Many of the other reviews deserve to be better known.
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“The Proletarian Writer”, the transcribed discussion between George Orwell and Desmond Hawkins appeared in the 19th December 1940 issue of The Listener.
| Broadcasts | ||
| “The Proletarian Writer” | A discussion with Desmond Hawkins, initially broadcast on the BBC Home Service, printed in The Listener on 19 December 1940 | |
| Literary Criticism I: The Frontiers of Art and Propaganda | Initially broadcast over BBC Overseas Service on 30 April 1941, printed in The Listener on 29 May 1941 | |
| Literary Criticism II: Tolstoy and Shakespeare | Initially broadcast over BBC Overseas Service on 7 May 1941, printed in The Listener on 5 June 1941 | |
| Literary Criticism III: The Meaning of a Poem | Initially broadcast over BBC Overseas Service on 14 May 1941, printed in The Listener on 12 June 1941 | |
| Literary Criticism IV: Literature and Totalitarianism | Initially broadcast over BBC Overseas Service on 21 May 1941, printed in The Listener on 19 June 1941 | |
| “The Re-Discovery of Europe” | Broadcast as the first instalment of “Literature Between Wars” by BBC Eastern Service, published in The Listener on 19 March 1942. Subsequently published, slightly amended, in Talking to India, November 1943. | |
| “Imaginary Interview: George Orwell and Jonathan Swift” | Recorded, 2 November 1942; broadcast, BBC African Service, 6 November 1942; published in The Listener 26 November 1942 as “Too Hard on Humanity”. | |
| Reviews and Letters | ||
| Indian Mosaic by Mark Channing | The Listener, 15 July 1936 | |
| The Open Air, by Adrian Bell | The Listener, 2 December 1936 | |
| Burmese Interlude by C. V. Warren | The Listener, 12 January 1938 | |
| Trials in Burma by Maurice Collis | The Listener, 9 March 1938 | |
| Teamsman, by Crichton Porteous | The Listener, 23 November 1939 | |
| Rudyard Kipling, by Edward Shanks | The Listener, 25 April 1940 | |
| Folios of New Writing (Spring, 1940) | The Listener, 16 May 1940 | |
| Indian Writing, Volume I | The Listener, 6 June 1940 | |
| What Do Boys and Girls Read, by A J Jenkinson | The Listener, 8 August 1940 | |
| India, by Sir Firozkhan Noon | The Listener, 24 July 1941 | |
| An Unknown Land, by Herbert Lewis Samuel | The Listener, 24 December 1942 | |
| The Pub and the People, by Mass Observation | The Listener, 21 January 1943 | |
| The English People, by D. W. Brogan | The Listener, 27 May 1943 | |
| The Adventures of the Young Soldier in Search of the Better World, by C. E. M. Joad | The Listener, 21 October 1943 | |
| Letter regarding review of Homage to Catalonia | The Listener, 16 June 1938 | |
| Letter regarding “The Re-Discovery of Europe” | The Listener, 9 March 1942 | |
| Book | ||
| Talking to India: A Selection of English Language Broadcasts to India | Published by Allen and Unwin, 18 November 1943 |
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Acknowledgements
The Complete Works of George Orwell, Edited by Professor Peter Davison
George Orwell: A Bibliography, by Gillian Fenwick (Oak Knoll Press/Winchester Bibliographies, 1998)
Excellent Les and lots of detail for members to follow up in their own time.
What a wonderful piece of research, Les, so clearly presented. Many thanks. Orwell’s journalistic range and output is so amazing!