Shooting An Elephant

An account of author's experience as a police officer in imperial Burma killing an escaped elephant in front of a crowd 'solely to avoid looking a fool'. This title features essays such as 'My Country Right or Left' 'How the Poor Die' and 'Such Such were the Joys' his memoir of the horrors of public school and more.|Eric Arthur Blair (1903-1950) better known by his pen-name George Orwell was born in India where his father worked for the Civil Service. An author and journalist Orwell was one of the most prominent and influential figures in twentieth-century literature. His unique political allegory Animal Farm was published in 1945 and it was this novel together with the dystopia of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) which brought him world-wide fame. His novels and non-fiction include Burmese Days Down and Out in Paris and London The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia.|'Shooting an Elephant' is Orwell's searing and painfully honest account of his experience as a police officer in imperial Burma; killing an escaped elephant in front of a crowd 'solely to avoid looking a fool'. The other masterly essays in this collection include classics such as 'My Country Right or Left' 'How the Poor Die' and 'Such Such were the Joys' his memoir of the horrors of public school as well as discussions of Shakespeare sleeping rough boys' weeklies and a spirited defence of English cooking. Opinionated uncompromising provocative and hugely entertaining all show Orwell's unique ability to get to the heart of any subject.A collection of witty and incisive non-fiction George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant includes an introduction by Jeremy Paxman in Penguin Modern Classics.