Orwell’s fifth published book, a searing account of the bleak living and working conditions of industrial workers in northern England. The first pubic edition, published after the true first edition for the Left Book Club and printed without the publisher’s famous foreword in which he attempted to distance himself from Orwell’s support of socialism and other radical ideas. ‘Only about 150 copies of the trade edition carried Gollancz’s foreword; the rest of the 2,000 or so copies of the trade edition did not’ (George Orwell: An Exhibition at the Grolier Club Fall 1996).
Provenance: From the library of Orwell scholar and former UCL deputy librarian Ian Angus, with his neat pencilled ownership to the front free endpaper. Angus was the co-editor of Orwell’s Collected Journalism, Essays and Letters published in 1968 and also later contributed to editing the enormous 20-volume edition of Orwell’s Complete Works published 1997-8.
A good copy, lacking dust jacket. All plates present, but misbound out of sequence. Foxing to first and last pages and to fore edge, hinges cracked but holding firmly, cloth rubbed and slightly marked, gilt lettering dulled.
Fenwick A5b.
