Inside the Whale and Other Essays


Inside the Whale and Other Essays is a book of essays written by George Orwell in 1940. It includes the eponymous essay "Inside the Whale".

Background

Inside the Whale was published by Victor Gollancz as a book of essays on 11 March 1940. Orwell refers to it as a "book" in part three of the essay., as well as in letters he wrote to Geoffrey Gorer and Humphry House, an English scholar, the following month. Gollancz initially printed 1,100 copies in March 1940, with some copies destroyed by Nazi bombing of England.

Contents

Later version

A collection of essays with the same title was published in 1962 in the UK by Penguin Books. This edition was a reprint of an earlier collection entitled Selected Essays published in 1957. The collection contains the following essays:
The back cover of the 1962 edition notes that the front cover is a photograph of a selection of books from George Orwell's personal library. These areFor the Time Being by W. H AudenEnemies of Promise by Cyril ConnollyStalky & Co. by Rudyard KiplingTarr by Wyndham LewisTropic of Capricorn by Henry MillerLast Poems by A. E. HousmanLeaves of Grass by Walt WhitmanUlysses by James Joyce
kept upright by a black elephant bookend.