Keep the Aspidistra Flying

“It can hardly be much more than a year ago that there appeared a remarkable volume of personal experience called Down and Out in London and Paris. It is not six months ago that there appeared an even more remarkable novel called A Clergyman’s Daughter. Last week there was published by the same author a more remarkable book than after reading Burmese Days by George Orwell, I have no hesitation in asserting that no ‘realistic’ writer during the last five years has produced three in directness, vigour, courage and vitality with these three volumes from the pen of Mr. George Orwell.” — Compton Mackenzie (Daily Mail)