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Down and Out in Paris and London (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

by George Orwell (Author) "The Rue du Coq d'Or, Paris, seven in the morning ..." (more)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (27 Sep 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0141184388
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141184388
  • Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 13.2 x 1.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 4,882 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #1 in  Books > History > Social & Economic History > Health & Welfare
    #1 in  Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > France
    #1 in  Books > Biography > Essays, Journals & Letters > 19th Century

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Product Description

Product Description

‘You have talked so often of going to the dogs – and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them.’ George Orwell’s vivid memoir of his time among the desperately poor and destitute in London and Paris is a moving tour of the underworld of society. Here he painstakingly documents a world of unrelenting drudgery and squalor – sleeping in bug-infested hostels and doss houses, working as a dishwasher in the vile ‘Hôtel X’, living alongside tramps, surviving on scraps and cigarette butts – in an unforgettable account of what being down and out is really like.


About the Author

Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). Several years of poverty followed. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as a private tutor, schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles to a number of periodicals. Down and Out in Paris and London was published in 1933. In 1936 he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) is a powerful description of the poverty he saw there. At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and was wounded. Homage to Catalonia is his account of the civil war. He was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco and there wrote Coming Up for Air. During the Second World War he served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC Eastern Service from 1941 to 1943. As literary editor of the Tribune he contributed a regular page of political and literary commentary, and he also wrote for the Observer and later for the Manchester Evening News. His unique political allegory, Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame. George Orwell died in London in January 1950.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
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The Rue du Coq d'Or, Paris, seven in the morning. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A sobering book, 30 Jan 2007
By DangermouseZilla "He's the strongest, he's th... (Doncaster, Yorkshire, UK.) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Down and Out in Paris and London (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
George Orwell felt awkward for being middle class, once he started to make a bit of money as an author this added to his awkwardness and he spent a lot of time in dank and impoverished surroundings.

This book is largely autobiographic, it tells of his time spent with the homeless. Orwell would pretend to be a tramp, not just pretend - he would live as a tramp from time to time. It was his time as a tramp that feed the ideas in this book.

Orwell writes about the camaraderie in the tramp community with warmth, you can feel his fondness for the people he is writing about.

The tramp experience covers only the second part of the book.

The first part describes the life of Parisian hotel/restaurant kitchen workers. It isn't glamorous. It is a life devoid of love, warmth, and happiness. Boris is the star of the "Paris" part of this book.

This is not only one of Orwell's finest pieces of work, it is a book that changes how you feel about life. When I read this book I was struggling financially - but this book put things in perspective, and I still imagine scenes in this book when times are hard.

The contrast between the "Paris" and "London" aspects of the book couldn't be more different, even though both are concerning that corner of society who seem to have nothing.

Read this book on the bus/train on the commute to work and you'll get lost in the dark visuals it inspires. The book had many place names and people's names removed for fear of being libellous, at first this seems clumsy but you get used to it.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Down and Out - read it, 9 Nov 2006
By Mr. A. J. Clabburn - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Down and Out in Paris and London (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
If ever there was a book deserving the title 'modern classic', this is it. A thought provoking and subtle collection of anecdotes that will make you laugh and out loud and balk at the extremes of poverty described in equal measure. The fact that Orwell avoides self indulgence and manages to evoke a genuine sense of compassion is truely remarkable and whatever your political orientation, having read this book it is hard to feel anything but respect for the man.

Despite its age, down and out still strikes a resonant chord in the modern world and while much has changed in the intervening years, there are still enough parralels with todays society to make you take stock of the world we live in.

I greatly enjoyed this book and recommend everyone to read it.

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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An under-rated classic, 11 May 2005
This review is from: Down and Out in Paris and London (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
I was completely captured by this book from the first page. Having only previously read "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four" I thought that it was time to explore some early Orwell and make a comparison. Much like with musicians it is usual their early work that they get the most respect for and I feel that it should be the same case here. You get lost in the book and really feel like you are down and out at times, such is the power of the text.

Granted, it is not as fundamentaly powerful as the two mentioned books but it has a different kind of message to it completely, it is a true story for the most part. Whereas "Nineteen Eighty-Four" strikes me as slightly pretentious this is an honest book from an honest and humble, young aspiring writer.

In short the book is a good days reading, excellent when it is raining like when I read it because you get sucked into it. Unlike other, similar down and out stories the book escapes from appearing monotone in your head and depressing, possibly because Orwell turned into a cult hero showing there is hope for all of us.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favourite books
This is a beautiful piece of writing and a wonderful example of humanity. Orwell looks at some of the most downtrodden and neglected in society, lives with them and brings back... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Mr W

3.0 out of 5 stars La Vache Enragée
George Orwell, whose real name is Eric Blair, was born in India in 1903. He served in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police and spent the end of the 1920s - as any self-respecting... Read more
Published on 30 Oct 2006 by Craobh Rua

5.0 out of 5 stars The poverty classic, timeless
Orwell lived the life. Remember watching the movie 'Moulin Rouge' and seeing the romantic vision of a struggling artist bashing out words on a typewriter, plagued by poverty and... Read more
Published on 22 April 2006 by Mark Kobayashi-Hillary

4.0 out of 5 stars Down and Out...
Unfussy, journalistic, swift and very, very witty. The word that seems most frequently attributed to Orwell's writing is 'lucidity', and it's an attribute evidenced nowhere more... Read more
Published on 2 April 2006

5.0 out of 5 stars Travel Review
It's hard to believe that Orwell wrote this while dying for B.T during the Spanish War of Independence. Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2006 by B. Greener

5.0 out of 5 stars Investigative journalism for the intelligent
What a writer - possibly the most natural and passionate user of the English language of the 20th century. Read more
Published on 8 Dec 2004 by F. Webster

4.0 out of 5 stars Can anyone clear up an ambiguity?
I found this book to be an excellent read, and it really outlined the problems encountered by the povery-striken at that time. Read more
Published on 26 Mar 2004 by Ms. M. Plaistow

3.0 out of 5 stars Before his time
You cannot fault Orwell's use of literature to explore the predicament/experiences of those without a voice. Read more
Published on 2 Oct 2003

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