George Orwell: A Literary Life

by Peter Hobley Davison

This account of Orwell's life is chiefly concerned with what influenced Orwell, his relations with publishers and editors, and the analysis of certain key experiences - the deposition that during the Spanish Civil War he was guilty of espionage and high treason; his work at the BBC; his interest in pamphlet literature; and his time as a war correspondent. There is a detailed assessment of his earnings from 1922 to 1945 and a fresh look at his attitudes to class, women, and religious belief. Special attention is paid to his essays.

202 pages, Hardcover

First published March 8, 1996

About the author

Professor Peter Hobley Davison, OBE, Ph.D., D.Litt., Hon. D. Arts, was formerly fellow of the Shakespeare institute and Professor of English at St David’s University College and the University of Kent, and is Senior Research Fellow in English and Media at De Montfort University, Leicester. As well as being the author of seven books and of numerous academic articles and reviews, he published editions of half a dozen plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Davison was considered an authority on the life and works of George Orwell and has published the Facsimile Edition of the manuscript of Nineteen Eighty-Four, as well as three collections. The final eleven volumes of his twenty-volume-edition of the Complete Works of George Orwell were published in 1998. From 1971 to 1982 he was editor of the journal of the Bibliographical Society, The Library, and from 1992 to 1994 was the Society’s President. He received the Society's Gold Medal in 2003.