Keep the Aspidistra Flying [antikvár]

A NOTE ON THE TEXT Keep the Aspidistra Flying was published by Gollancz on 20 April 1936. Three thousand copics were run off, of which 2,194 were sold; most of the remainder were lost as the result of an air-raid. It was not published again in Orwell's lifetime, only appearing in Seeker Warburg's Uniform Edition in 1954 and in Amcrica in December 1955, published by Harcourt, Brace. Despite the fact that there is only one relevant edition, and that Orwell corrected the proofs, preparing a text in line with what Orwell originally wrote presents difficulties, some insoluble. Orwell completed writing Keep the Aspidistra Flying by the beginning of 1936, and by the time he left London on 31 January 1936 for his journey north to gather material for The Road to Wigan Pier, he was under the impression that his text had been accepted. It was only as the proofs started to come through in February that fears were aroused at Gollancz, who then referred the book to their solicitor. Orwell was required to make drastic changes at proof stage and this he strongly resented. He was upset partly because he objected to such in-house censorship, and at so late a stage, and partly because he had to make the changes, using the same number of letters in order that his text would not overrun. Moreover, he had to do all this in a setting the grimness of which contrasted markedly with the bourgeois comforts that he was attacking as essentially worthless in the novel. After dealing with one series of objections, he wrote to his agent, Leonard Moore, with considerable bitterness, to say that had he been told these changes were required before type-setting began he would 'have entirely