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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 Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War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

Meanwhile it is always possible that guns were stolen, only for use at the front, not in Barcelona. Every unit was constantly stealing weapons from others, when it could, owing to the general shortage & in one case (the P.O.U.M.) because we were systematically starved of weapons & at times were not far from unarmed. About April 2 batteries of Russian guns did arrive, & conceivably they were stolen ones, as no Russian weapons had been allowed to get to us till then.

Raymond Mortimer quickly sent Orwell a handwritten note saying, ‘Dear Orwell, Please accept my humble apologies. I did not know Kingsley Martin had written to you in those terms. My own reasons for refusing the review were those that I gave. I should be sorry for you not to write for us, and I should like to convince you from past reviews that there is no premium here on Stalinist orthodoxy.’On 10 February, Kingsley Martin wrote to Orwell: ‘Raymond Mortimer has shown me your letter. We certainly owe you an apology in regard to the letter about The Spanish Cockpit. There is a good deal else in your letter which suggests some misunderstanding and which, I think, would be better discussed than written about. Could you make it convenient to come and see me some time next week? I shall be available on Monday afternoon, or almost any time on Tuesday’ It is not known whether Orwell accepted Martin’s invitation, but he probably did; his letter to Moore of about 12 February (425) indicates that he expected to be in London on that Tuesday, 15 February. Orwell’s review of Galsworthy’s Glimpses and Reflections was published in the New Statesman on 12 March 1938 (see 430), and he contributed reviews to the journal from July 1940 to August 1943. However, as is recorded in conversation with friends, he never forgave Martin for his ‘line’ on the Spanish Civil War. See Crick, 340–42.

1. John McGovern (1887–1963), ILP MP, 1930–47; Labour MP, 1947–59, led a hunger march from Glasgow to London in 1934. Félicien Challaye, French left-wing politician, member of the committee of La Ligue des Droits des Hommes, a liberal, anti-Fascist movement to protect civil liberty throughout the world. He resigned in November 1937, with seven others, in protest against what they interpreted as the movement’s cowardly subservience to Stalinist tyranny.

2. The letter from Brailsford of 17 December, printed above.

3. For Orwell’s references to Inprecor in Homage to Catalonia, see pp. 200 and 202–4 [V/228 and 231–3].

[434]

To Stephen Spender

2 April 1938 Handwritten

Jellicoe Ward, Preston Hall, Aylesford, Kent

Dear Spender,