Chapters (82)
- Cover
- Brand Page
- Orwell in Spain
- Orwell in Spain
- Introduction
- Editorial Note
- Acknowledgements
- Orwell’s Journey to Spain, December 1936
- Extract from ‘As I Please’, 42 [The Journey to Spain]
- Jennie Lee to Margaret M. Goalby, 23 June 1950: Orwell’s Arrival in Barcelona
- Orwell in Spain, December 1936
- Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
- ‘British Author with the Militia’
- Eileen Blair to her mother
- To Eileen Blair
- Extract from letter from Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
- Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
- Extract from letter to Victor Gollancz
- Orwell’s Wound
- To Cyril Connolly
- Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
- Escape from Spain
- BARCELONA 13TH JULY, 1937
- Charles Doran
- Homage to Catalonia
- X
- ‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’
- Eileen Blair to John McNair
- George Kopp to Dr Laurence O’Shaughnessy
- Translation of letter written in Spanish by George Kopp to Lieutenant-Colonel Burillo,7 Chief of Police, Barcelona
- George Kopp to Eileen Blair
- Review of The Spanish Cockpit by Franz Borkenau; Volunteer in Spain by John Sommerfield
- To Rayner Heppenstall
- ‘Eye-Witness in Barcelona’
- Abstracts of Reports on the Spanish Civil War in the Daily Worker and News Chronicle, 1936–7
- To Amy Charlesworth
- To Charles Doran
- Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War
- To Geoffrey Gorer
- Review of Red Spanish Notebook by Mary Low and Juan Brea; Heroes of the Alcazar by R. Timmermans; Spanish Circus by Martin Armstrong
- To H. N. Brailsford
- Review of Storm Over Spain by Mairin Mitchell; Spanish Rehearsal by Arnold Lunn; Catalonia Infelix by E. Allison Peers; Wars of Ideas in Spain by Josée Castillejo; Invertebrate Spain by Josée Ortega y Gasset
- H. N. Brailsford to Orwell
- To H. N. Brailsford
- Review of The Tree of Gernika by G. L. Steer; Spanish Testament by Arthur Koestler
- To the Editor, Time and Tide
- To Raymond Mortimer
- To Stephen Spender
- To Geoffrey Gorer
- ‘Notes* on the Spanish Militias
- To the Editor, The Times Literary Supplement
- Sir Richard Rees to Orwell
- To the Editor, The Listener
- Review of Spain’s Ordeal1 by Robert Sencourt; Franco’s Rule [anonymous]
- Review of The Civil War in Spain by Frank Jellinek1
- Review of Searchlight on Spain by the Duchess of Atholl1
- To the Editor, Manchester Guardian
- To Yvonne Davet
- To Raymond Postgate
- Orwell made two copies of this summary of the article in La Flèche of 14 October 1938, by L.-P. Foucaud.
- Review of The Church in Spain, 1737-1937 by E. Allison Peers; Crusade in Spain by Eoin O’Dujfy1
- To Frank Jellinek
- ‘Release of George Kopp’
- ‘Caesarean Section in Spain
- To Yvonne Davet
- Review of Hotel in Flight by Nancy Johnstone
- Review of The Last Days of Madrid by S. Casado, translated by Rupert Croft-Cooke; Behind the Battle by T. C. Worsley
- Review of The Spanish Dilemma by E. Allison Peers; A Key to Victory: Spain by Charles Duff
- Extract from War-time Diary
- Review of The Forge by Arturo Barea,1 translated and with an introduction by Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell2
- Extract from letter to Partisan Review
- Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 22 [Comparison with the Spanish Civil War]
- ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’ [1942?]
- Proposed BBC Broadcast on the Spanish Civil War
- Review of Spain in Eclipse, 1937–1943 by E. Allison Peers; Behind the Spanish Mask by Lawrence Dundas
- Extract from ‘As I Please’, 10 [How the lie becomes truth]
- ‘The Eight Years of War: Spanish Memories’
- Review of An Interlude in Spain by Charles d’Ydewalle, translated by Eric Sutton
- Review of The Clash by Arturo Barea1
- Orwell’s Pamphlet Collection
- A summary of letters from and to David Astor, 4 and 5
- Further Reading
1. Raymond Challinor, in Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, 54 (Winter 1989), 40, states: ‘Originally, Controversy was begun after the Independent Labour Party disaffiliated from the Labour Party in 1932. At first, it functioned as the Party’s internal bulletin… In 1936, however, its character completely changed. From then onwards, Controversy sought to be – and largely was – a journal where the many diverse views held within the working-class movement could be openly discussed without rancour.’ To acknowledge that its readership was much wider than that of the ILP, it changed its name in 1939 to Left Forum and then to Left. It ceased publication in May 1950. Challinor attributes much of its success to the character of its editor, Dr C. A. Smith, a London headmaster and later a University of London lecturer. Among those writing for the journal he lists Frank Borkenau, Max Eastman, Sidney Hook, Jomo Kenyatta, Victor Serge, August Thalheimer, Jay Lovestone, George Padmore, Marceau Pivert and Simone Weil.
2. For the significance of the groups represented by initials, see Homage to Catalonia, pp. 179– 82 [VI/Appendix I, 201–5]. Relevant extracts and part of a letter from Hugh Thomas to the editors of CJEL are reprinted as a note to Orwell’s ‘Notes on the Spanish Militias’, below.
3. Orwell later realized that it was not the Civil Guards, but a local section of Assault Guards, who seized the Barcelona Telephone Exchange. Shortly before he died, he gave instructions that the text of Homage to Catalonia be changed; see pp. 29–30 [VI/Textual Note].
4. For Orwell’s later thoughts, see letters to H. N. Brailsford, 10 and 18 December 1937, below.
5. Officers’ Training Corps, associated with the public-school system in England.
6. Andrés Nin (1892–1973) was leader of the POUM. He had at one time been Trotsky’s secretary but broke with him when Trotsky spoke critically of the POUM (see Thomas, 523). He ‘underwent the customary Soviet interrogation’ suffered by those who were claimed to be ‘traitors to the cause’ and was then murdered, possibly in the royal park just north of Madrid. In later months the remaining POUM leaders were interrogated and tortured, some in the convent of Saint Ursula in Barcelona, ‘the Dachau of republican Spain’, as one POUM survivor described it. Nin was the only POUM leader to be murdered. However, Bob Smillie was thrown into jail in Valencia without just cause (see Homage to Catalonia, pp. 155–6 [VI/170–1]), where he died, according to his captors, of appendicitis. Thomas gives this account of Nin’s probable fate: ‘He… refused to sign documents admitting his guilt and that of his friends… What should they do?… the Italian Vidali (Carlos Contreras) suggested that a “nazi” attack to liberate Nin should be simulated. So, one dark night, probably 22 or 23 June, ten German members of the International Brigade assaulted the house in Alcalá where Nin was held… Nin was taken away and murdered… His refusal to admit his guilt probably saved the lives of his friends’ (705).