The Road to Wigan Pier

“When I sit down to write a book,” Orwell admitted, “I don’t tell myself, ‘I want to create a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie I have to expose, some fact that must be brought to attention…” That is how Orwell’s four autobiographical novellas were written—the ones that make up this book. «It Was a Lovely, Lovely Time» is about childhood and school at St. Cyprian’s; Orwell said that he «brought the sounds, smells, and colors of his schoolboy childhood into the fantastic ‘London of 1984,’» while «the students’ suffering in English schools is an analogy for a person’s helplessness before totalitarian power.» «Down and Out in Paris and London» is about the back side of life in the glittering Paris behind the scenes, where he worked as a dishwasher in a hotel, and about the world of London tramps and beggars, among whom Orwell lived for three years—sleeping under bridges and in shelters for the homeless… «The Road to Wigan Pier» is about the north of England—both a poetic and industrial edge—and the hardships of the miners and working class, the «humbled and insulted,»—to whose suffering a socialist writer couldn’t remain indifferent. Finally, «Homage to Catalonia»—perhaps one of his most searing and honest texts—is about the civil war in Spain, where Orwell went to fight as a militiaman.