Why Orwell Matters line of thought long enough or searchingly enough to reach a truly provocative insight. There's no sense of a deepening engagement with the subject; one is never allowed to forget the gesticulating presence of the critic. The valuable reflections on Orwell keep getting interrupted by a series of asides, ripostes and thrusts into tangled little backwaters." Why Orwell Matters Why Orwell Matters, released in the UK as Orwell's Victory, is a book-length biographical essay by Christopher Hitchens. In it, the author relates George Orwell's thoughts on and actions in relation to: At the end of the book, Hitchens critiques Orwell's
George Orwell bibliography before he could support himself as an author. These pieces include first-hand journalism (e.g. 1931's "The Spike"), articles (e.g. 1931's "Hop-Picking"), and even a one-act play—"Free Will". (He would also adapt four plays as radio dramas.) His production of fiction was not as prolific—while living in Paris he wrote a few unpublished stories and two novels, but burned the manuscripts (Orwell routinely destroyed his manuscripts and with the exception of a partial copy of "Nineteen Eighty-Four", all are lost. Davison would publish this as "Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Facsimile of the Extant Manuscript" by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in May 1984, .)