Inside the Whale : On Writers and Writing

Unfailingly elegant and endlessly relevant, the four essays in this collection treat literature as a vital record of:

• Our political hypocrisies
• Our social failings
• The ennobling limits of our ideological aspirations

Delving into the literary canon, George Orwell encounters dusty classics and lesser-known works of literature on his own exhilarating terms. The novels of Henry Miller lead him inside the belly of Jonah's whale, an imagined refuge in a time of total war.

Highlights of the Essays:

• Charles Dickens: A trenchant investigation unfolds into a poignant portrait of nineteenth-century liberalism.
• Shakespeare and Tolstoy: A minor pamphlet on Shakespeare by Tolstoy provokes a stirring evocation of humanism and the excessive vitality of life.

A series of singularly thrilling reading experiences, these essays celebrate Orwell's engagement with the world of writers and literature.