COMING UP FOR AIR (OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS) (PB)

Before the war! How long shall we go on saying that, I wonder? How long before the answer will be 'Which war?' Published in 1939, Coming Up for Air is the most accomplished of Orwell's early realist novels, casting light on the development of Orwell's distinctive thinking as a cultural critic. The novel explores many of the themes Orwell later reprised in 1984: nostalgia, memory, and disillusionment in the face of modernity's ills, including industrialisation, capitalist exploitation, and endless war.