It is What I Think

Much of 1947 and 1948 was taken up with Orwell’s struggle to complete Nineteen Eighty-Four and his fight against illness. He wrote ‘Arthur Koestler’, ‘Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool’, and his last contribution to Tribune, his eightieth ‘As I Please’. The second half of 1948 was spent at Jura where, by a supreme effort, and often in great pain, he managed to complete Nineteen Eighty-Four. He was admitted to hospital and continued to work on ‘Such, Such Were the Joys’; among the essays he wrote were ‘Towards European Unity’, ‘Profile of Krishna Menon’, ‘Writers and Leviathan’, ‘Britain’s Left-Wing Press’, ‘George Gissing’, ‘Britain’s Struggle for Survival: The Labour Government after Three Years’, and ‘Marx and Russia’; and he continued to review. Changes made in the course of the production of Orwell’s radio version of Animal Farm are listed; his second Literary Notebook is reproduced and his third series of notes for his literary executor. This volume is rich in previously unpublished correspondence and includes Fredric Warburg’s and David Farrer’s reports on Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell’s attempt to secure justice for those unfairly treated is also well illustrated.