Books, Arts & Manners: A Reluctant Propagandist

Orwell: The Lost Writings, edited by W. J. West (Arbor House, 304 pp., $20)

When I wished to study the Orwell papers at the British Broadcasting Company archives in Reading, England, I was given a radically incomplete file. The amateur scholar William J. West, searching for material on C. K. Ogden’s Basic English, had accidentally found that radio talks by Orwell—a producer in the Indian section from August 1941 until November 1943—had been mysteriously placed under the name of the Indian lady who introduced the program. This eventually led to West’s astonishing discovery of many of Orwell’s weekly war commentaries (to be published in a later volume), of 16 political and literary talks and adaptations, and of one hundred pages of letters from Orwell to his contributors. Unfortunately, this impersonal, routine, and repetitive correspondence could have been written by any bureaucrat.

About the Author

Jeffrey Meyers

Mr. Meyers is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the author of John Huston: Courage and Art.

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Orwell: The Lost Writings, edited by W. J. West (Arbor House, 304 pp., $20)

When I wished to study the Orwell papers at the British Broadcasting Company archives in Reading, England, I was given a radically incomplete file. The amateur scholar William J. West, searching for material on C. K. Ogden’s Basic English, had accidentally found that radio talks by Orwell—a producer in the Indian section from August 1941 until November 1943—had been mysteriously placed under the name of the Indian lady who introduced the program. This eventually led to West’s astonishing discovery of many of Orwell’s weekly war commentaries (to be published in a later volume), of 16 political and literary talks and adaptations, and of one hundred pages of letters from Orwell to his contributors. Unfortunately, this impersonal, routine, and repetitive correspondence could have been written by any bureaucrat.