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Shooting an Elephant tells the story of a police officer in Burma who is called upon to shoot an aggressive elephant. Loosely based on Orwell's own experiences, the tightly written essay weaves together fact and fiction indistinguishably, and leaves the reader contemplating the heavy topic of colonialism.

Inside the Whale discusses Henry Miller's controversial Tropic of Cancer, and considers the driving power behind the great books of the 1930s. Comparing Miller with other literary giants, Orwell lambasts the notion that all literature is good, forcing the reader to think for themselves.

On Reading collects together Orwell's short essays on books - 'Bookshop Memories', 'Good Bad Books', 'Nonsense Poetry', 'Books vs. Cigarettes' and 'Confessions of a Book Reviewer' - giving a rounded view of the great writer's opinions on the literature of his day, and the vessels in which it was sold.

Fearing that England was about to be wiped from the face of the earth by the Nazi bombers flying overhead, Orwell put pen to paper and set out to make a record of English culture. England Your England is this record, and is an important tableau of the nation's history, and demonstrates a resolute refusal to bow to the threatening forces of Fascism.

Politics vs. Literature is, at heart, a review of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Using the book as an example of enjoying a book whose author one cannot stand, Orwell goes on to say that he considers Gulliver's Travels a work of art, leaving the reader to reconsider the books on their own shelves.

In The Prevention of Literature, Orwell discusses the effect of the ownership of the press on the accuracy of reports of events, and takes aim at political language, which 'consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together.' It is a stirring cry for freedom from censorship, which Orwell says must start with the writer themselves.

In Why I Write, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the works we remember him for. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell's mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writers' oeuvre.

In Politics and the English Language, Orwell takes aim at the language used in politics, which, he says, 'is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind'. This essay is just as relevant today, and gives the reader a vital understanding of the tactics at play in political language.