Diaries

This groundbreaking volume, never before published in the United States, at last introduces the interior life of George Orwell, the writer who defined twentieth-century political thought. Written as individual books throughout his career, the eleven surviving diaries collected here record Orwell's youthful travels among miners and itinerant laborers, the fearsome rise of totalitarianism, the horrific drama of World War II, and the feverish composition of his great masterpieces Animal Farm and 1984 (which have now sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author). Personal entries cover the tragic death of his first wife and Orwell's own decline as he battled tuberculosis. Exhibiting great brilliance of prose and composition, these treasured dispatches, edited by the world's leading Orwell scholar, "exhibit the seeds of famous passages to come" (New Statesman) and amount to a volume as penetrating as the autobiography he would never write.

Hop-picking diary, August 25,1931-October 8, 1931 -- The road to Wigan Pier diary, January 31, 1936-March 15, 1936 -- Domestic diary volume I, August 9, 1938-March 28, 1939, intercalated with Morocco diary, September 7, 1938-March 28, 1939 ; Marrakech notebook ; Domestic diary volume 1, continued, April 10,1939-May 26, 1939 -- Domestic diary volume II, May 27, 1939-August 31, 1939, intercalated with Diary of events leading up to the war, July 2, 1939-September 3, 1939 ; Domestic diary volume II, continued, September 5, 1939-April 29, 1940 -- War-time diary, May 28, 1940-August 28, 1941 -- Second war-time diary, March 14, 1942-November 15, 1942 -- The Jura diaries: Domestic diary volume III, May 7, 1946-January 5, 1947 ; Domestic diary volume IV, April 12, 1947-September 11, 1947 ; Domestic diary volume V, September 12, 1947-October 29, 1947 ; Summary of Avril's entries, December 27,1947-May 10, 1948 -- Relevant entries from Orwell's notebooks, c. February 20, 1948-May 21, 1948 -- Domestic diary volume V, July 31, 1948-December 24, 1948 -- Relevant entries from last literary notebook, March 21, 1949-September 1949.