Keep the Aspidistra Flying | George Orwell

Despitehailing from a comfortable family background, budding poet Gordon Comstockdecides to declare war on money and all the middle-class trappings thatwealth can buy. Working in a small bookshop and living in a bedsit in London, he dreams of completing an ambitious poem in rhyme royal and devoting hislife to literature. But when poverty begins to damage his self-esteem andtaint his worldview, and his romantic and professional lives start fallingapart, will Gordon be able to uphold his anti-money principles, or will hesuccumb to the lure of lucre and everything he stands against?First published in 1936, Keep the Aspidistra Flying is the author's thirdnovel, and one of his most outspoken works of social criticism. Partlyautobiographical, it sits alongside Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four as areminder of Orwell's lucid narrative style and his abilities as a politicallyand socially engaged writer.