Despite hailing from a comfortable family background, budding poet Gordon Comstock decides to declare war on money and all the middle-class trappings that wealth can buy. Working in a small bookshop and living in a bedsit in London, he dreams of completing an ambitious poem in rhyme royal and devoting his life to literature. But when poverty begins to damage his self-esteem and taint his worldview, and his romantic and professional lives start falling apart, will Gordon be able to uphold his anti-money principles, or will he succumb to the lure of lucre and everything he stands against?
First published in 1936, Keep the Aspidistra Flying is the author-s third novel, and one of his most outspoken works of social criticism. Partly autobiographical, it sits alongside Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four as a reminder of Orwell-s lucid narrative style and his abilities as a politically and socially engaged writer.
