Product Description: Stephen Medcalf (1937-2006) was an essayist, in the best traditional sense of that calling: a writer not of books but of substantial and justly celebrated essays, widely read in the Times Literary Supplement and elsewhere. Medcalf's abiding question to the world was the Psalmist's: 'What is man that thou art mindful of him?' His was a Blakean sense of Englishness, far from the chocolate-box painting or the television adaptation, and for him the strongest writers were those keenly aware of their roots in the classical, Anglo-Saxon or Celtic past...read more

In a varied compilation of essays, the author of Animal Farm and 1984 reflects on a wide range of social, political, and literary issues of his time, in selections that capture his firm belief in social justice, universal freedom and equality, and truth in language, in such pieces as 'My Country Right or Left,' 'Shooting an Elephant,' and 'A Nice Cup of Tea.' 15,000 first printing.