The English People
Collins, 1947.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Green paper covered boards with lettering and design in white. Eight colour and 17 black and white illustrations from paintings. A fine copy in a near fine dustwrapper, with very slight scratch marks to upper cover.
Part of the popular Britain in Pictures series conceived of during wartime to present Britain and its people in illustrations by various well-known artists including Edward Ardizonne and Henry Lamb, and texts designed to boost public morale by exceptional writers like Orwell. Written in 1944 (the delay in publication was caused by the "wartime paper shortage") the extended essay covers what it is, according to Orwell, to be English - and includes moral and political beliefs, the class system and the English language, which he states "has two outstanding characteristics to which most of its minor oddities can be finally traced.... a very large vocabulary and simplicity of grammar."
Stock ID: 46176
