''Critical Essays'' (1946) is a collection of wartime pieces by

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

. It covers a variety of topics in English literature, and also includes some pioneering studies of

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

. It was acclaimed by critics, and Orwell himself thought it one of his most important books.

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

::First published in '' Inside the Whale and Other Essays'' (1940). *

Boys' Weeklies "Boys' Weeklies" is an essay by George Orwell in which he analyses those weekly story-paper publications for boys which were current around 1940. After being published in ''Horizon (British magazine), Horizon'' in abridged form, it was published ...

::First published in an abridged form in ''

Horizon The horizon is the apparent curve that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This curve divides all viewing directions based on whethe ...

'', March 1940. Reprinted in ''Inside the Whale and Other Essays'' (1940). * Wells,

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

and the World State ::Response to H. G. Wells ''Guide to the New World''. ::First published in ''Horizon'', August 1941. * The Art of Donald McGill ::First published in ''Horizon'', February 1942. *

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...

::Response to ''

A Choice of Kipling's Verse ''A Choice of Kipling's Verse, made by T. S. Eliot, with an essay on Rudyard Kipling'' is a book first published in December 1941 (by Faber and Faber in UK, and by Charles Scribner's Sons in U.S.A.). It is in two parts. The first part is an es ...

'', edited by

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

. ::First published in ''Horizon'', February 1942. *

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the ...

:: Review of V. K. Narayana Menon ''The Development of William Butler Yeats''. ::First published in ''Horizon'', January 1943. *Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...

::Response to '' The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí''. ::According to a note by Orwell, "'Benefit of Clergy' made a sort of phantom appearance in the ''Saturday Book'' for 1944. The book was in print when its publishers, Messrs Hutchinson, decided that this essay must be suppressed on grounds of obscenity. It was accordingly cut out of each copy, though for technical reasons it was impossible to remove its title from the table of contents." Several copies, including Orwell's own, escaped this excision. *

Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler (, ; ; ; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler j ...

::Unpublished before ''Critical Essays''. * Raffles and Miss Blandish ::First published in ''Horizon'', October 1944. *In Defence of

P. G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse ( ; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Je ...

::First published in ''Windmill'', no. 2, uly1945.

Publication

In late 1944 Orwell, worrying about the ephemerality of magazine publication, began to collect a volume of his best essays. The resulting collection appeared under the imprint of

Secker & Warburg Harvill Secker is a British publishing company formed in 2005 from the merger of Secker & Warburg and the Harvill Press. History Secker & Warburg Secker & Warburg was formed in 1935 from a takeover of Martin Secker, which was in receivership, ...

on 14 February 1946, with a print-run of 3028 copies. The following May a second impression of 5632 copies was issued, with some small corrections. The US edition of 5000 copies was published in April 1946 by

Reynal & Hitchcock Reynal and Hitchcock was a publishing company in New York City. Founded in 1933 by Eugene Reynal and Curtice Hitchcock, in 1948 it was absorbed by Harcourt, Brace.'' American Authors and Books: 1640 to Present Day'' Third Revised Edition, Crow ...

, and retitled ''Dickens, Dali & Others: Studies in Popular Culture''. A reprint in paperback dropped the subtitle.

Themes

The blurb to the first edition described some of the essays as being "among the very few attempts that have been made in England to study popular art seriously". Orwell thought seemingly frivolous popular culture, such as crime fiction, comic postcards, and the Billy Bunter stories, to be worth studying for the light it throws on contemporary attitudes. Applying this approach to the subjects considered in ''Critical Essays'' he tended to find that they showed the innovations of his own time to be harsh and unfeeling compared to the old-fashioned humanity of traditional popular forms. Another theme is that of literary style, which Orwell thought to be the inevitable result of its writer's world-view and the message he wanted to get across. He considered the English language of the 1940s to be in a degenerate state, and held that political discourse was inevitably corrupted as a result.

Critical reception

Orwell himself, writing before he had completed ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also published as ''1984'') is a dystopian novel and cautionary tale by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically ...

'', said that he thought ''Critical Essays'' one of his three most important books, along with ''

Animal Farm ''Animal Farm'' (originally ''Animal Farm: A Fairy Story'') is a satirical allegorical novella, in the form of a beast fable, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of anthropomorphic far ...

'' and ''

Homage to Catalonia ''Homage to Catalonia'' is a 1938 memoir by English writer George Orwell, in which he accounts his personal experiences and observations while fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Covering the period between December 1936 and June 1937, Orwell re ...

''. His contemporaries in the world of criticism also largely saw the book's merits. The journalist Tosco Fyvel, writing in ''

Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the Tribune of the Plebs, tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs ac ...

'', acclaimed Orwell as "a national figure as a critic, satirist and political journalist", while disagreeing with Orwell's view that the Attlee government was uncommitted to the introduction a fully socialist society. In the Catholic paper ''

The Tablet ''The Tablet'' is a Catholic Church, Catholic international weekly review published in London. Brendan Walsh, previously literary editor and then acting editor, was appointed editor in July 2017. History ''The Tablet'' was launched in 1840 by ...

'',

Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...

predictably deplored Orwell's lack of religious feeling, but also wrote that the essays "represent at its best the new humanism of the common man", and that Orwell was "outstandingly the wisest" of the new critics. Middleton Murry, who likewise criticised Orwell's secularism, nevertheless called Orwell and

Cyril Connolly Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine ''Horizon (British magazine), Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote ''Enemies of Pro ...

the two most gifted critics of their generation. V. S. Pritchett considered the essays "brilliant examples of political anthropology applied to literature by a non-conforming mind". Eric Bentley saw the book as "a dirge for nineteenth-century liberalism", and, like Irving Howe, thought it represented Orwell at his best.

Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer, literary critic, and journalist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. Wilson began his career as a journalist, writing ...

, a critic to whom most others compared Orwell, called him "the only contemporary master" of sociological criticism, praising him for his courage in rejecting the reigning orthodoxies, and for "a prose style that is both downright and disciplined". A recent survey of Orwell's work endorses his own high opinion of its importance, calling it "Orwell at his best", a book which "showed Orwell's talent for finding deep meaning in otherwise trivial matters", while Bernard Crick said that Orwell's essays "may well constitute his lasting claim to greatness as a writer".

Footnotes

References

* * * *
Critical essays by essaywing
{{Crimethink 1940 essays 1941 essays 1942 essays 1943 essays 1944 essays 1945 essays 1946 books Aesthetics books Books by George Orwell Books of literary criticism Contemporary philosophical literature English-language non-fiction books Essay collections Essays about literature Essays in literary criticism Philosophy essays Secker & Warburg books

Contents

Publication

Themes

Critical reception

Footnotes

References