the cambridge companion to george orwell GeorgeOrwellisregardedasthegreatestpoliticalwriterinEnglishofthetwen- tieth century. The massive critical literature on Orwell has not only become extremelyspecialised,andthereforesomewhatinaccessibletothenon-scholar, butithasalsocontributedtoandevencreatedmisconceptionsabouttheman,the writer,andhisliterarylegacy.Forthesereasons,anoverviewofOrwell’swriting andinfluenceisanindispensableresource.Accordingly,thisCompanionserves as both an introduction to Orwell’s work and furnishes numerous innovative interpretationsandfreshcriticalperspectivesonit.ThroughouttheCompanion, which includes chapters dedicated to Orwell’s major novels, Nineteen Eighty- FourandAnimalFarm,Orwell’sworkisplacedwithinthecontextofthepolitical andsocialclimateofthetime.HisresponsetotheDepression,Britishimperi- alism,Stalinism,theSecondWorldWar,andthepoliticsoftheBritishLeftare allexamined.ChaptersalsodiscussOrwell’sstatusamongintellectualsandin the literary academy, and a detailed chronology of Orwell’s life and work is included. John Rodden has taught at the University of Virginia and the University of Texas at Austin. He has authored or edited several books on George Orwell, including The Politics of Literary Reputation: the Making and Claiming of ‘St George’ Orwell (1989), Understanding Animal Farm in Historical Con- text (1999), Scenes from an Afterlife: the Legacy of George Orwell (2003), GeorgeOrwellIntotheTwenty-FirstCentury(2004),andEveryIntellectual’s BigBrother:GeorgeOrwell’sLiterarySiblings(2006). THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO GEORGE ORWELL EDITED BY JOHN RODDEN cambridge university press Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown,Singapore,Sa˜oPaulo CambridgeUniversityPress TheEdinburghBuilding,Cambridgecb28ru,UK PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521675079 (cid:2)C CambridgeUniversityPress2007 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithout thewrittenpermissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2007 PrintedintheUnitedKingdomattheUniversityPress,Cambridge AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary isbn 978-0-521-85842-7hardback isbn 978-0-521-67507-9paperback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyofURLsfor externalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,anddoesnot guaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. CONTENTS Notesoncontributors page vii Preface x john rodden Chronology xii 1 Apoliticalwriter 1 john rossi and john rodden 2 Orwellandthebiographers 12 gordon bowker 3 EnglandsHisEnglands 28 jonathan rose 4 Thetruthsofexperience:Orwell’snonfictionofthe1930s 43 margery sabin 5 Thefictionalrealist:novelsofthe1930s 59 michael levenson 6 Orwell’sessaysasaliteraryexperience 76 william e. cain 7 ‘Mycountry,rightorleft’:Orwell’spatriotism 87 john rossi 8 OrwellandtheBritishLeft 100 ian williams v contents 9 Orwell,anti-SemitismandtheHolocaust 112 john newsinger 10 Orwell,SocialismandtheColdWar 126 robert conquest 11 AnimalFarm:historyasfable 133 morris dickstein 12 NineteenEighty-Four:contextandcontroversy 146 bernard crick 13 Orwell,theacademyandtheintellectuals 160 neil mclaughlin 14 Orwellfortoday’sreader:anopenletter 179 john rodden 15 GeorgeOrwell:abibliographicessay 190 erika gottlieb 16 WhyOrwellstillmatters 201 christopher hitchens 208 Furtherreading 211 Index vi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS gordon bowkertaughtatGoldsmith’sCollege,UniversityofLondon.Henow worksasafull-timebiographerandjournalist.HisbooksincludeMalcolmLowry: Under the Volcano: A Casebook (1987); Malcolm Lowry Remembered (1985); PursuedbyFuries:ALifeofMalcolmLowry(1993);ThroughtheDarkLabyrinth: A Biography of Lawrence Durrell (1996); and George Orwell [Inside George OrwellintheUS](2003).Heisnowworkingonabookaboutliteraryexile. william e. cainisProfessorofEnglishatWellesleyCollege.Heistheeditorof AHistoricalGuidetoHenryDavidThoreau (2000)andAmericanLiterature,a two-volumeanthology(2004). robert conquestisaresearchfellowattheHooverInstitution,StanfordUni- versity. He is the author of some thirty-one books of history, biography, poetry, fictionandcriticism,includingTheGreatTerror,whichhasappearedinmorethan twentylanguages,TheHarvestofSorrow,ReflectionsonaRavagedCentury,and TheDragonsofExpectation. bernard crickisProfessorEmeritusofBirkbeckCollege,UniversityofLondon. Hisprolificwritingsspanboththeacademicandthepopular,apublicintellectual intheoldsense.HisbestknownbooksareInDefenceofPolitics(1962andstillin print)andGeorgeOrwell:ALife(1980);andalsofourbooksofessaysincluding Essays on Politics and Literature, Political Thoughts and Polemics, and Essays on Citizenship. More recently he wrote Democracy. In2002, he was knighted ‘forservicestocitizenshipandpoliticalstudies’afterhavingchairedtheadvisory groupthatbroughtcitizenshipintothenationalcurriculumforEngland.Hehas livedsince1984inEdinburgh,wherehehasbeenactiveintheScottishdevolution movement. morris dicksteinisDistinguishedProfessorofEnglishattheGraduateCenter oftheCityUniversityofNewYork,whereheteachescoursesinliterature,filmand Americanculturalhistory.HeisaseniorfellowoftheCenterfortheHumanities, vii notes on contributors which he founded in 1993. His books include a study of the 1960s, Gates of Eden (1977), which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism; Double Agent: The Critic and Society (1992); and Leopards in the Temple(2002),awidelyreviewedsocialhistoryofpostwarAmericanfiction.His latestbookisacollectionofessays,AMirrorintheRoadway:Literatureandthe RealWorld(2005).HeiscompletingaculturalhistoryoftheUnitedStatesinthe 1930s. erika gottliebis the author of Dystopian Fiction East and West: Universe of TerrorandTrial(2001);TheOrwellConundrum:ACryofDespairorFaithinthe SpiritofMan?(1992);andLostAngelsofaRuinedParadise:ThemesofCosmic Strife in Romantic Tragedy (1982). Her essays are published in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Shakespearean Criticism, and Utopian Studies. Gottlieb has taughtatMcGillandConcordiaUniversitiesinMontreal,atthefacultyofEnglish in Budapest’s ELTE University, and in Toronto at Seneca College and Ryerson PolytechnicUniversity. christopher hitchensis among the best known and most controversial fig- ures in contemporary intellectual life. He is a prolific author, journalist, literary criticandpublicintellectualwhoisoftendescribedasa‘contrarian’.Nowliving in Washington, DC, he has been a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Nation, Slate and an occasional contributor to many other publications. He is the author of GodIsNotGreat:TheCaseAgainstReligion(2007);ThomasJefferson:Author ofAmerica(2005);Love,Poverty,andWar:JourneysandEssays(2004);ALong ShortWar:ThePostponedLiberationofIraq(2003);WhyOrwellMatters(2002), amongotherbooks. michael levensonistheWilliamB.ChristianProfessorofEnglishattheUni- versity of Virginia. He is the author of A Genealogy of Modernism: A Study of English Literary Doctrine, 1908–1922 (1984); Modernism and The Fate of Individuality:CharacterandFormintheModernEnglishNovel(1991);TheSpec- tacleofIntimacy:APublicLifefortheVictorianFamily(2000; co-authorKaren Chase),theforthcomingModernism,andeditoroftheCambridgeCompanionto Modernism. neil mclaughlinteachessociologicaltheory,andworksinthebroadareaofthe sociologyofculture,knowledgeandintellectuals.Heisworkingontheconceptof the‘globalpublicintellectual’andisresearchingthesocialcontextof‘academics as public intellectuals’ in Canada in two projects funded by the Canadian Fed- eralgovernment’sSocialScienceandHumanitiesResearchCouncil(SSHRC).He has previously published on the sociology of reputations and critical theory in journalssuchasTheSociologicalQuarterlyandSociologicalTheory,onthetopic ofCanadiansociologyinTheCanadianJournalofSociologyandTheAmerican SociologistandonpoliticalissuesinDissent. viii notes on contributors john newsingeris senior lecturer at Bath Spa University. He is the author of Orwell’sPoliticsandnumerousarticlesonOrwell.HismostrecentbookisRebel City:Larkin,ConnollyandtheDublinLabourMovement(London:MerlinPress, 2004.)HeiscurrentlyworkingonahistoryoftheBritishEmpire. john roddenhastaughtattheUniversityofVirginiaandtheUniversityofTexas atAustin.HehasauthoredoreditedseveralbooksonGeorgeOrwell,including The Politics of Literary Reputation: the Making and Claiming of ‘St. George’ Orwell(1989),UnderstandingAnimalFarminHistoricalContext(1999),Scenes fromanAfterlife:TheLegacyofGeorgeOrwell(2003),GeorgeOrwellIntothe Twenty-FirstCentury(withThomasCushman,2004),andEveryIntellectual’sBig Brother:GeorgeOrwell’sLiterarySiblings(2006). jonathan roseis Professor of History at Drew University. His books include TheIntellectualLifeoftheBritishWorkingClasses,TheHolocaustandtheBook: DestructionandPreservation,andTheRevisedOrwell.Herecentlycoedited(with Simon Eliot) A Companion to the History of the Book. He was the founding president of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, andhecurrentlycoedits(withEzraGreenspan)thejournalBookHistory. john p. rossiisaProfessorofHistoryatLaSalleUniversityinPhiladelphia.He haswrittenwidelyaboutOrwell’scareer. margery sabinis Lorraine Chiu Wang Professor of English at Wellesley Col- lege.SheistheauthorofEnglishRomanticismandtheFrenchTradition(1976), TheDialectoftheTribe:SpeechandCommunityinModernFiction(1987),and DissentersandMavericks:WritingsaboutIndiainEnglish:1765–2000(2002),as wellasessaysandreviewsinjournals,includingRaritan,EssaysinCriticism,Prose Studies,andCollegeEnglish.Anearlierandpartialversionofheressayherewas presentedattheGeorgeOrwellCentenaryConferenceatWellesleyCollege(May, 2003), and published as ‘Outside/Inside: Searching for Wigan Pier’, in George Orwell Into the Twenty-First Century, edited by Thomas Cushman and John Rodden(2004). ian williams’sbook Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776 was published in August 2004 which Kirkus Reviews calls ‘rambunctious, rollickinghistory,soddenwithtastylore’.HispreviouswasTheDeserter:Bush’s WaronMilitaryFamilies,VeteransandHisOwnPast.Hisfirst,TheAlmsTrade, waspublishedin1989,andhissecond,TheUNForBeginners,waspublishedin 1995.HehaschaptersinGeorgeOrwellIntotheTwenty-FirstCentury,editedby Thomas Cushman and John Rodden (2004), Why Kosovo Matters: The Debate ontheLeftRevisited,editedbyDannyPostel(forthcoming),IrvingHoweandthe Critics: Celebrations and Attacks, edited by John Rodden (2005), and The Iraq War,editedbyRickFawnandRaymondHinnebusch(2006). ix