Newsletter: Orwell's notes on Wigan | The Orwell Foundation

Friday 18 February 2011

If you’re enjoying our Wigan Pier diary blog, you might also want to take a look at Orwell’s notes on Wigan.

In addition to the diary, Orwell conducted a great deal of research, spending a lot of time in public libraries and writing to local officials. Orwell’s notes on Wigan combine this research with other observations from his time in Wigan, notably on housing.

And one of this week’s diary entries gives a fascinating insight into how all of this research was translated into the final book – compare Orwell’s entry of 15^th February with this extract from chapter one of The Road to Wigan Pier.

The Orwell Prize 2011

This year’s Prize has received a record-breaking 213 entries for the Book Prize, 87 journalists for the Journalism Prize and 205 bloggers for the Blog Prize. To see a full list of entrants, visit our website.

The longlists will be announced on 30^th March 2011.

From the archive

Orwell’s essay, ‘Decline of the English Murder’, was published 65 years ago this week, on 15^th February 1946. You can now read it on our website, along with another new addition to our archive – one of Orwell’s most famous essays, ‘Politics and the English Language’.

The wartime diary over the weekend mentioned Orwell’s friend, the author Arthur Koestler. Orwell’s essay on Koestler’s work (which includes the dystopian classic, Darkness at Noon) can be found on our site.

The London Review of Books was having a great deal of fun on twitter with famous typos this week (including this one from Orwell fan, Christopher Hitchens). In his talk at the Cheltenham Festival, Peter Davison discussed some of the more entertaining (honest) Orwell production problems – including a surprising answer to a famous mathematical formula. 2+2 = [blank], anyone?

Events

We’ll be announcing some literary festival events of our own shortly, but until then, a number of previous winners will be appearing up and down the UK:

Aye Write! Glasgow

6^th March – Peter Hennessy with Keith Jeffery (click here to book)
7^th March – Raja Shehadeh (click here to book)
8^th March – Francis Wheen (click here to book)
11^th March – Polly Toynbee with David Walker (click here to book)

Jewish Book Week, London

2^nd March – Clive James with Pascal Bruckner (click here to book)
6^th March – Raja Shehadeh (click here to book)

Cambridge Book Festival

3^rd March – Raja Shehadeh with Robert Macfarlane (click here to book)

Qattan Foundation

4^th March – Raja Shehadeh (click here to book)

Also, this year’s Political Quarterly lecture (PQ are one of our partners) will be given by David Miliband on 8 March. Visit the LSE website for more information.

The Wigan Pier Diaries

This week, entries were published on 12^th, 13^th, 15^th, 16^th, 17^th and 18^th February.

Next week, entries will be published on 19^th, 20^th, 21^st and 24^th February.

In addition to the blog, we have a Google Map tracking Orwell’s journey, a flickr set of archive images, and our page on The Road to Wigan Pier, with the first chapter and other links.

The Wartime Diaries

This week, entries were published on 12^th February.

The next entry will be published on 1^st March. If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on gavin.freeguard@mediastandardstrust.org or follow us on Twitter. And you can subscribe to this newsletter via email.