Coming Up for Air
Videos
Coming Up for Air is the seventh book and fourth novel by the English writer George Orwell, published in June 1939 by Victor Gollancz. It was written between 1938 and 1939 while Orwell spent time recu
First edition cover
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Videos
Keep the Aspidistra Flying, first published in 1936, is a socially critical novel by George Orwell. It is Orwell's third novel and fourth book. The novel is set in 1930s London. The main theme is Gord
Coming Up for Air
…John Wain thought the book was "not a success in novelistic terms", but saw "vitality in its hinterland." He considered the novel "a bleaker work than Keep the Aspidistra Flying; in Aspidistra everybody fears the sack, hankers for more money and security, cringes to the boss. But only to the boss at work, the economic boss…
First edition
Two aspidistra plants – "The types he saw all round him, especially the older men, made him squirm. That was what it meant to worship the money-god! To settle down, to Make Good, to sell your soul for a villa and an aspidistra! To turn into the typical bowler-hatted sneak – Strube's 'little man' [–] What a fate!" (Ch. III)