“When I first read War and Peace I must have been twenty, an age at which one is not intimidated by long novels, and my sole quarrel with his book (three stout volumes—the length of perhaps four modern novels) was that it did not go on long enough. It seemed to me that Nicholas and Natacha Rostov, Peter Besukhov, Denisov and all the rest of them, were people about whom one would gladly go on reading for ever.”
George Orwell, Tribune, 1944
Orwell (the writer) was always Eric Blair, the inveterate reader. His lifelong romance with books, especially the ones he read and reread, deeply informed his work and ways of thinking. Scattered throughout his novels, reviews, letters and diaries are all kind of hints and clues to what he loved to read.
Many of my favourite Orwellian essays and articles are reflections on his own reading and love of books. “Bookshop Memories”; “Good Bad Books”; “Confessions of a Book Reviewer”; and, “Books v. Cigarettes” are oft anthologised examples but there are many others, lesser known but equally interesting, such as “Riding Down From Bangor” and various “As I Please” columns in Tribune.
During 1934-1935, Orwell worked at Booklovers’ Corner, a store owned by Esperantist friends of his aunt, Nellie Limouzin:
“Our shop stood exactly on the frontier between Hampstead and Camden Town, and we were frequented by all types from baronets to bus-conductors. Probably our library subscribers were a fair cross-section of London’s reading public.”
Working here (and living above the shop) gave Orwell time to write and provided fodder for one of his novels, Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936). This job must have exposed him to thousands of books which otherwise he would have not held in his hands. However, there was a significant downside, if we believe what he wrote about the experience in “Bookshop Memories” (1936):
“But the real reason why I should not like to be in the book trade for life is that while I was in it I lost my love of books. A bookseller has to tell lies about books, and that gives him a distaste for them; still worse is the fact that he is constantly dusting them and hauling them to and fro. There was a time when I really did love books — loved the sight and smell and feel of them, I mean, at least if they were fifty or more years old.”
Orwell’s Library
On the 8th February 1946, Orwell told his readers that he owned nearly 900 books. After his death in 1950, his library was distributed between his literary executors – Richard Rees and his second wife, Sonia Brownell – and his youngest sister, Avril Dunn. Many of these were later donated to the Orwell Archive in London, where researchers endeavoured to collate but acknowledged it was not always possibly to confirm which belonged to the writer. His library, if multi-volume sets are listed as one title, only totalled 523 books. Many had not survived his itinerant lifestyle. Professor Peter Davison believed that at least 389 of these were “certainly Orwell’s”. The other books may have been his or were owned by Rees, Eileen O’Shaughnessy and Sonia Brownell – or his brother-in-law, Laurence O’Shaughnessy.
Orwell also owned a very large collection of pamphlets. In 1949, after more than twenty years of collecting, he estimated “there were between 1,200 and 2,000” in his possession. Orwell correctly believed some “must be great rarities” and bequeathed them to the British Library where they are available for researchers.
One of Orwell’s prized possessions – originally the property of a great-uncle, Captain Horatio Blair RN (1806-1875) – was a “small collection of leather-covered books” (mostly poetry) “kept in a wooden travelling case”. Orwell’s son, Richard Horatio Blair, inherited this portable library of 152 volumes (5×3 inches). Housed in a hinged wooden case are three shelves (18 x 18 inches) of books which survived the vicissitudes of 19th century naval life. Considering his own love of nature and poetry, Orwell would have appreciated the intellectual, literary and aesthetic value of his ancestor’s collection, especially the two-volume edition of Samuel Johnson’s, The Rambler (1826), thirty volumes of Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle (1778) and 120 books of poetry in the series, Poems of Great Britain: From Chaucer to Churchill (1779).
One of the books had been gifted and inscribed to Horatio by a brother who was killed tragically in a rail accident, Captain Frederick Charles Blair RN (1809-1848). These two naval officers were the brothers of Orwell’s grandfather and the sons of Charles Blair (1776-1854). This travelling library is contextually interesting when considering Orwell’s own class and family background. It provides more clues and evidence suggesting Orwell’s personal knowledge of his 18th and 19th century Blair ancestors was far more comprehensive than previously understood.
Knowing the books Orwell reviewed, collected or mentioned reading in his essays and articles – especially during his younger years – has proven to be more than just an intellectually rewarding hobby. These books map the intellectual roads he travelled. The more one peers into his writing and life, the more interesting his own reading becomes.
Orwell’s library holds enduring fascination. Peruse it and see what you can find!
REFERENCES
Bowker, Gordon, George Orwell, London: Abacus, 2004
Bowker, Gordon, “Orwell’s Library”, New England Review, Volume 26, Issue 1, 2005
Orwell, George, A Kind of Compulsion: 1903–1936, The Complete Works of George Orwell – Volume 10, Secker & Warburg, 1998 (see ‘Bookshop Memories’, Fortnightly, November 1936)
Orwell, George, I Have Tried to Tell the Truth: 1943–1944, The Complete Works of George Orwell – Volume 16, Secker & Warburg, 2001 (see “As I Please”, Tribune, 10 March 1944
Orwell, George, I Belong to the Left: 1945, The Complete Works of George Orwell – Volume 17, Secker & Warburg, 1998 (see “Good Bad Books”, Tribune, 2 November 1945
Orwell, George, Smothered Under Journalism: 1946, The Complete Works of George Orwell – Volume 18, Secker & Warburg, 1998 (see ‘Books v. Cigarettes,’ Tribune, 8 February 1946; The “Confessions of a Book Reviewer”, The New Republic, 5 August 1946)
Orwell, George, Our Job Is to Make Life Worth Living: 1949–1950, The Complete Works of George Orwell – Volume 20, Secker & Warburg, 1998 (see Appendix 10 & 11)
