It Is What I Think - Tapa dura

Much of these years 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 Eurpean Unity', a 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 This volume is rich in previously unpublished correspondence and includes Frederic Warburg's and David Farrer's reports on Nineteen Eighty-Four.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.

George Orwell (1903-1950) served with the Imperial Police in Burma, fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and was a member of the Home Guard and a writer for the BBC during World War II. He is the author of some of the most celebrated works of non-fiction and fiction in the English language.