George Orwell Studies 7:2

Special Issue in Memory of Professor Peter Davison

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Tributes to Professor Peter Davison, who died in August last year (2022), form the major part of the latest issue of George Orwell Studies. His dedicated editing and annotating – over seventeen years – of the Complete Works of George Orwell stands as a towering achievement of academic scholarship. As Douglas Kerr writes in his tribute, it is ‘clear, reliable, scrupulous – and beautiful’. Without the publication of the Complete Works (totalling more than 8,500 pages) in 1998 it is difficult to imagine the massive growth of Orwell Studies across the globe over the last two decades.

Others paying tribute include Darcy Moore, John Rodden, Richard Young, Nathan Waddell, Sylvia Topp, D.J. Taylor, John Newsinger and Dorian Lynskey.

In addition, the issue carries a range of fascinating articles. Peter Davison was always very keen to stress the important role played by his wife, Sheila, and the librarian Ian Angus in editing the Complete Works. It was, in the end, the fruit of a remarkable collaborative venture. Indeed, under the title of each volume run the words, prominently: ‘Edited by Peter Davison, assisted by Ian Angus and Sheila Davison.’ Yet Angus, who earlier has assisted Orwell’s widow, Sonia, in editing the Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters (1968), has been sadly forgotten and his death last October, aged 96, went largely unnoticed in the media. In this issue, John Lethbridge brings together the information from his impressive research to provide an appropriately detailed biography of Angus.

One of the major Orwellian events of recent months has been the publication of the Nineteen Eighty-Four manuscript by SP Books*. In this issue of GOS we carry D.J. Taylor’s concise and illuminating Foreword. Richard Young follows up the publication by SP Books with an essay titled ‘Some Thoughts on Manuscripts – with Particular Reference to Nineteen Eighty-Four’.

John Rodden ponders the whys and wherefores of yet another historic first for George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: topping the Russian bestseller lists in the winter of 2022-2023.

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* Éditions des Saints Pères, of 7 rue Pasteur, 14340 Cambremer, France.

• George Orwell Studies, which is entirely independent of The Orwell Society, is jointly edited by Richard Lance Keeble and Tim Crook. It is available from http://www.abramis.co.uk/george-orwell-studies/; Journals Fulfilment Department, Abramis Academic, ASK House, Northgate Avenue, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk IP32 6PB; tel: 01284 717884; email: info@abramis.co.uk.
  

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