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Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Brand Page
  3. Orwell in Spain
  4. Orwell in Spain
  5. Introduction
  6. Editorial Note
  7. Acknowledgements
  8. Orwell’s Journey to Spain, December 1936
  9. Extract from ‘As I Please’, 42 [The Journey to Spain]
  10. Jennie Lee to Margaret M. Goalby, 23 June 1950: Orwell’s Arrival in Barcelona
  11. Orwell in Spain, December 1936
  12. Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
  13. ‘British Author with the Militia’
  14. Eileen Blair to her mother
  15. To Eileen Blair
  16. Extract from letter from Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
  17. Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
  18. Extract from letter to Victor Gollancz
  19. Orwell’s Wound
  20. To Cyril Connolly
  21. Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
  22. Escape from Spain
  23. BARCELONA 13TH JULY, 1937
  24. Charles Doran
  25. Homage to Catalonia
  26. X
  27. ‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’
  28. Eileen Blair to John McNair
  29. George Kopp to Dr Laurence O’Shaughnessy
  30. Translation of letter written in Spanish by George Kopp to Lieutenant-Colonel Burillo,7 Chief of Police, Barcelona
  31. George Kopp to Eileen Blair
  32. Review of The Spanish Cockpit by Franz Borkenau; Volunteer in Spain by John Sommerfield
  33. To Rayner Heppenstall
  34. ‘Eye-Witness in Barcelona’
  35. Abstracts of Reports on the Spanish Civil War in the Daily Worker and News Chronicle, 1936–7
  36. To Amy Charlesworth
  37. To Charles Doran
  38. Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War
  39. To Geoffrey Gorer
  40. Review of Red Spanish Notebook by Mary Low and Juan Brea; Heroes of the Alcazar by R. Timmermans; Spanish Circus by Martin Armstrong
  41. To H. N. Brailsford
  42. 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
  43. H. N. Brailsford to Orwell
  44. To H. N. Brailsford
  45. Review of The Tree of Gernika by G. L. Steer; Spanish Testament by Arthur Koestler
  46. To the Editor, Time and Tide
  47. To Raymond Mortimer
  48. To Stephen Spender
  49. To Geoffrey Gorer
  50. ‘Notes* on the Spanish Militias
  51. To the Editor, The Times Literary Supplement
  52. Sir Richard Rees to Orwell
  53. To the Editor, The Listener
  54. Review of Spain’s Ordeal1 by Robert Sencourt; Franco’s Rule [anonymous]
  55. Review of The Civil War in Spain by Frank Jellinek1
  56. Review of Searchlight on Spain by the Duchess of Atholl1
  57. To the Editor, Manchester Guardian
  58. To Yvonne Davet
  59. To Raymond Postgate
  60. Orwell made two copies of this summary of the article in La Flèche of 14 October 1938, by L.-P. Foucaud.
  61. Review of The Church in Spain, 1737-1937 by E. Allison Peers; Crusade in Spain by Eoin O’Dujfy1
  62. To Frank Jellinek
  63. ‘Release of George Kopp’
  64. ‘Caesarean Section in Spain
  65. To Yvonne Davet
  66. Review of Hotel in Flight by Nancy Johnstone
  67. Review of The Last Days of Madrid by S. Casado, translated by Rupert Croft-Cooke; Behind the Battle by T. C. Worsley
  68. Review of The Spanish Dilemma by E. Allison Peers; A Key to Victory: Spain by Charles Duff
  69. Extract from War-time Diary
  70. Review of The Forge by Arturo Barea,1 translated and with an introduction by Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell2
  71. Extract from letter to Partisan Review
  72. Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 22 [Comparison with the Spanish Civil War]
  73. ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’ [1942?]
  74. Proposed BBC Broadcast on the Spanish Civil War
  75. Review of Spain in Eclipse, 1937–1943 by E. Allison Peers; Behind the Spanish Mask by Lawrence Dundas
  76. Extract from ‘As I Please’, 10 [How the lie becomes truth]
  77. ‘The Eight Years of War: Spanish Memories’
  78. Review of An Interlude in Spain by Charles d’Ydewalle, translated by Eric Sutton
  79. Review of The Clash by Arturo Barea1
  80. Orwell’s Pamphlet Collection
  81. A summary of letters from and to David Astor, 4 and 5
  82. Further Reading

Professor Allison Peers4 is the leading English authority on Catalonia. His book is a history of the province, and naturally, at the present moment, the most interesting chapters are those towards the end, describing the war and the revolution. Unlike Mr. Lunn, Professor Peers understands the internal situation on the Government side, and Chapter XIII of his book gives an excellent account of the strains and stresses between the various political parties. He believes that the war may last for years, that Franco is likely to win, and that there is no hope of democracy in Spain when the war is over. All of them depressing conclusions, but the first two are quite probably correct and the last is most assuredly so.

Finally, two books which really belong to an earlier period, but are relevant to the civil war in so much that they give certain glimpses of its origins. Wars of Ideas in Spain is primarily a treatise on Spanish education. I am not competent to judge it, but I can admire the intellectual detachment that has been able to produce it amid the horrors of civil war. Dr. Castillejo is a professor at the University of Madrid and for thirty years past has worked for educational reform in Spain. He is now watching his life-work going down into a sea of rival fanaticisms; for, as he rather sadly recognizes, whatever else survives the war, intellectual tolerance will not. Invertebrate Spain is a collection of essays, most of them first published about 1920, on various aspects of the Spanish character. Sr. Ortega y Gasset5 is one of those writers of the type of Keyserling, who explain everything in terms of race, geography and tradition (in fact, of anything except economics), and who are constantly saying illuminating things without reaching any general conclusion. Open Invertebrate Spain and you realize immediately that you are in contact with a distinguished mind; go on reading it, and you find yourself wondering what the devil this is all about. Still, it is a distinguished mind, and if the book as a whole leaves behind an impression of vagueness, or even chaos, each separate paragraph is capable of starting an interesting train of thought.

1. Mairin Mitchell wrote to Orwell following the publication of this review (letter undated) thanking him for the generosity with which he had treated her book, especially because, from her reading of The Road to Wigan Pier, she did not think they were in the same political camp. However, she did point out that she was ‘unlike almost all English writers on Spain’, in being Irish!

2. Arnold Lunn (1888–1974; Kt, 1952) incurred Orwell’s wrath because he supported Franco. He was an authority on skiing and wrote books on travel and religion. With Monsignor Ronald Knox he published their correspondence about Roman Catholicism, Difficulties (1932).