George Orwell

Down and out in Paris and London George Orwell Unabridged edition

Orwells own experiences inspire this semi-autobiographical novel about a man living in Paris in the early 1930s without a penny. The narrators poverty brings him into contact with strange incidents and characters, which he manages to chronicle with sensitivity and graphic power. The latter half of the book takes the English narrator to his home city, London, where the world of poverty is different in externals only.

A socialist who believed that the lower classes were the wellspring of world reform, Orwell actually went to live among them in England and on the continent. His novel draws on his experiences of this world, from the bottom of the echelon in the kitchens of posh French restaurants to the free lodging houses, tramps, and street people of London. In the tales of both cities, we learn some sobering Orwellian truths about poverty and society.