ORWELL, George And REYNOLDS, Reginald. Listings

Click on Title to view full description

	1 ORWELL, George and REYNOLDS, Reginald. British Pamphleteers. Volume One: From the Sixteenth Century to the French Revolution. Allan Wingate, London. 1948.  First edition. Brown cloth, gilt. 264pp. Illustrations. Sl. rubbed, extremities sl. bumped. F.fep. partially pasted to f.pd. VG 33471  Price: 10.00 GBP Add to Shopping Cart
	2 ORWELL, George. George Orwell in Kent. Hop-Picking. With a Critical introductiom by Medway Fitzmoran and Postscript by John Blest of Home Farm, Wateringbury. Bridge Books. Kent. 1970  First edition, thus. Limited to 300 copies only, this being number 205. Small slim 8vo. Original brown paper covered bds. Rear e/p foxed o/w near fine. Scarce. 32340  Price: 50.00 GBP Add to Shopping Cart
	3 ORWELL, George. Homage to Catalonia. Secker & Warburg. London. 1938  First edition. Original green cloth, worn along extremities and frayed at head and tail of spine. Bds sl. soiled, paper clip mark to front e/ps, inner hinge visible but sound. VG. With the ownership signature and address of Richard Rees "R Rees 34 Wellington Sq. S.W.3" to front pastedown. With a pencil note underneath by Hugh Hudson, the British film director, best known for "Chariots of Fire","Greystoke" and "Revolution", explaining that Sir Richard Rees was a very close friend of Orwell's since 1930 and an ambulance driver with Julian Bell in Spain. Also Hudson adds, he was the part owner and editor of "Adelphi" in the late 1920's and 1930's. [This was the magazine that first published Orwell's work]. This volume is from the library of Sir Arnold Wesker and was a gift from Hudson in 1990. The book bears the ownership signature of Wesker and loosely inserted is a postcard from Hudson thanking Wesker for "the very sensitive and powerful work on Barcelona." He goes on to explain that this volume belonged to "Orwell's great friend Richard Rees... much quoted in 'the Transformation' and 'Fyrd'". Also included with this copy is a hard copy of the screenplay by Wesker for Hudson's possible film. Below in the notes are quotations from the Wikipedia biographies of Hudson and Orwell to support the provenance of this most exciting association copy of one of Orwell's scarce first editions. From Hugh Hudson's biography on Wikipedia: "He is in active development of a film adaptation of George Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia', to star Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Gerard Depardieu".From Orwell's biography: "He fell seriously ill in March 1929 and shortly afterwards had all his money stolen from the lodging house. Whether through necessity or simply to collect material, he undertook menial jobs like dishwashing in a fashionable hotel on the rue de Rivoli providing experiences to be used in Down and Out in Paris and London. In August 1929 he sent a copy of "The Spike" to New Adelphi magazine in London. This was owned by John Middleton Murry who had released editorial control to Max Plowman and Sir Richard Rees. Plowman accepted the work for publication.In the spring he had a short stay in Leeds with his sister Marjorie and her husband Humphrey Dakin whose regard for Blair was as unappreciative then as when he knew him as a child. Blair was undertaking some review work for Adelphi and acting as a private tutor to a handicapped child at Southwold. He followed this up by tutoring a family of three boys one of whom, Richard Peters, later became a distinguished academic.[13] He went painting and bathing on the beach, and there he met Mabel and Francis Fierz who were later to influence his career. Over the next year he visited them in London often meeting their friend Max Plowman. Other homes available to him were those of Ruth Pitter and Richard Rees. These acted as places for him to "change" for his sporadic tramping expeditions where one of his jobs was to do domestic work at a lodgings for half a crown a day......At this time Jonathan Cape rejected A Scullion's Diary, the first version of Down and Out. On the advice of Richard Rees he offered it to Faber & Faber, whose editorial director, T. S. Eliot, also rejected it. To conclude the year Blair attempted another exporatory venture of getting himself arrested so that he could spend Christmas in prison, but the relevant authorities did not cooperate and he returned home to Southwold after two days in a police cell......Blair worked at the shop in the afternoons, having the mornings free to write and the evenings to socialise. These experiences provided background for the novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936). As well as the various guests of the Westropes, he was able to enjoy the company of Richard Rees and the Adelphi writers and Mabel Fierz....On 31 January 1936, Orwell set out by public transport and on foot via Coventry, Stafford, the Potteries and Macclesfield, reaching Manchester. Arriving after the banks had closed, he had to stay in a common lodging house. Next day he picked up a list of contact addresses sent by Richard Rees..." 32365  Price: 3500.00 GBP Add to Shopping Cart