Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India and was schooled at Eton. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, which provided inspriation for his first novel, Burmese Days. He went on to become a journalist, working for the BBC, Tribune, the Observer and the Manchester Evening News. He is best known for his two novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame. He died in 1950.

In these timeless and witty essays George Orwell explores the English love of reading about a good murder in the papers (and laments the passing of the heyday of the ‘perfect’ murder involving class, sex and poisoning), as well as unfolding his trenchant views on everything from boys’ weeklies to naughty seaside postcards. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.