Keep the Aspidistra Flying : Annotated Edition (Alma Classics Evergreens)

Description

Despite

hailing from a comfortable family background, budding poet Gordon Comstock

decides to declare war on money and all the middle-class trappings that

wealth can buy. Working in a small bookshop and living in a bedsit in London,

he dreams of completing an ambitious poem in rhyme royal and devoting his

life to literature. But when poverty begins to damage his self-esteem and

taint his worldview, and his romantic and professional lives start falling

apart, will Gordon be able to uphold his anti-money principles, or will he

succumb to the lure of lucre and everything he stands against?

First published in 1936, Keep the Aspidistra Flying is the author’s third

novel, and one of his most outspoken works of social criticism. Partly

autobiographical, it sits alongside Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four as a

reminder of Orwell’s lucid narrative style and his abilities as a politically

and socially engaged writer.