Orwell: The Life - Softcover

Taylor, D. J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080507693X ISBN 13: 9780805076936

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 2004

Synopsis

Winner of the 2004 Whitbread Prize for Biography

"D. J. Taylor has written not only the best recent biography of George Orwell . . . but also one of the cleverest studies of the relationship of that life to the written word."
-The Washington Post Book World

In the last fifty years, Animal Farm and 1984 have sold more than forty million copies, and "Orwellian" is now a byword for a particular way of thinking about life, literature, and language. D. J. Taylor's magisterial assessment cuts through George Orwell's iconic status to reveal a bitter critic who concealed a profound totalitarian streak and whose progress through the literary world of the 1930s and 1940s was characterized by the myths he built around himself.

Drawing on previously unseen material, Orwell is a strikingly human portrait of the writer too often embalmed as a secular saint. This biography is as vibrant, powerful, and resonant as its extraordinary subject.

About this title

Review:

"Taylor wins the biographical contest...[He] is an accomplished literary critic and he illuminates Orwell's work in the context of his life elegantly and expertly" (Guardian)

"Taylor's book has the unmistakable depth of flavour that comes from long, slow, careful cooking-pithy and fascinating" (Jan Dalley Financial Times)

"Taylor writes with such skill and aplomb that it's impossible not to be swept along by the intelligence and observations" (Independent on Sunday)

"Taylor's biography is a persuasive and profoundly moving exploration of the ways in which Orwell's work was constructed from the stones of a ruined life-[it] is likely to prove in many ways definitive" (Daily Telegraph)

"Fetchingly original...Taylor's [biography] is pacy socio-journalism" (Ian Thomson Scotland on Sunday)

From the Publisher:

Revealing and moving, the major biography we have all been waiting for - by eminent critic, biographer and novelist, published to coincide with the centenary of Orwell's birth.

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 080507693X
• ISBN 13: 9780805076936
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496