Down and Out in Paris and London

“Down and Out in Paris and London” is the first major work that the aspiring writer Eric Blair released under the pseudonym George Orwell. In essence, it’s an autobiographical story written a couple of years after he finished his service in the police of British Burma. It’s a story about how Orwell decided to try his luck in Paris as an English teacher. Unfortunately, a teaching career didn’t work out, and yesterday’s successful officer found himself in a peculiar anti-world where hunger and poverty ruled, and where you could lose your life for a piece of bread. A tiny room in the slums, a seventeen-hour ordeal of hard labor and the lack of normal food undermined even his not-very-strong health to begin with. A few years later, completely sick and depressed, he returned to London. But even here, he wasn’t especially welcome.

Also, don’t miss the previously released audiobook of George Orwell: “The Road to Wigan Pier,” “Animal Farm,” “1984,” “Hooray for the Ficus!,” “Shooting an Elephant,” “Down and Out in Paris and London,” “Breathe,” “England and the English,” “Remembering the Spanish War.”