This summer, thousands of teenagers taking one of the UK’s most popular English A-level courses will have the opportunity to write about George Orwell’s groundbreaking exploration of poverty and homelessness.
Down and Out in Paris and London, published in 1933, is still lauded for its unflinching depictions of destitution. One contemporary described it as “a genuine human document, which at the same time is written with so much artistic force that, in spite of the squalor and degradation thus unfolded, the result is curiously beautiful with the beauty of an accomplished etching on copper”.
