"The Spike" is a 1931

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalit ...

in which he details his experience staying overnight in the casual ward of a

workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...

(colloquially known as a "spike") near

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. This episode in Orwell's life took place while he was intentionally living as a

vagrant Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

in and around London as part of the

social experiment A social experiment is a type of psychological or sociological research for testing people's reactions to certain situations or events. The experiment depends on a particular social approach where the main source of information is the point of v ...

that would form the basis of his first book ''

Down and Out in Paris and London ''Down and Out in Paris and London'' is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. Its target audience was the middle- and upper-cl ...

''. The events of this essay are also found in that book, though the essay is not reprinted verbatim in the book. Orwell was in Paris, in August 1929, when he first sent a copy of "The Spike" to the ''

New Adelphi New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

'' magazine. The ''New Adelphi'' was a London periodical which was owned by John Middleton Murry. Murry had released editorial control to Sir Richard Rees and

Max Plowman Mark Plowman, generally known as Max Plowman, (1 September 1883 – 3 June 1941) was a British writer and pacifist. Life to 1918 He was born in Northumberland Park, Tottenham, Middlesex. He left school at 16, and worked for a decade in his fathe ...

, and it was Plowman who accepted the work for publication. However, various revisions were required, and the work did not appear in print until April 1931.

D. J. Taylor David John Taylor (born 1960) is a British critic, novelist and biographer. After attending school in Norwich, he read Modern History at St John's College, Oxford, and has received the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award for his biography of Geo ...

''Orwell: The Life'' Chatto & Windus 2003

References

External links

Full text of "The Spike"
Essays by George Orwell 1931 essays Works originally published in The Adelphi {{essay-stub

See also

References

External links