Essays
This Everyman's Library volume brings together the bulk of George Orwell's essay writing across roughly two decades, from his early reporting through the late pieces written near the end of his life. Readers find the famous set pieces, including Politics and the English Language, Shooting an Elephant, A Hanging, and Why I Write, alongside dozens of less celebrated essays on Dickens, Kipling, postcard humor, English cooking, and the experience of being poor. The arrangement is roughly chronological and shows Orwell's mind moving through the long crisis of the 1930s and 1940s. Taken together, the essays are usually considered as important as his novels, and they remain a working reference for writers who care about plain language and honest thinking.
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What you might want to know about Essays
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A career-spanning gathering of George Orwell's essays on politics, language, literature, and the texture of English life.
Bourdain treated the essays as a reference book on politics and language, returning to pieces like Politics and the English Language as a model for how to write clearly and think honestly about power.
Most readers dip in. The book works either as a sustained read or as a shelf reference to return to over years.
Essays was written by George Orwell, published in 2002 by Everyman's Library.
Essays is 1369 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Essays takes most readers 21 to 30 hours to finish.
Essays is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.