Amazon.ca:Customer reviews: The George Orwell Complete Collection: 1984; Animal Farm; Down and Out in Paris and London; The Road to Wigan Pier; Burmese Days; Homage to Catalonia; Essays; and More

338 total ratings, 20 with reviews

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From Canada

Lynda

Must read

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 14, 2023

Verified Purchase

A classic. A great re-read considering the crazy times we see ourselves in these past 3 years

Helpful

From other countries

MR P C ANDREWS

Cannot criticise

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 21, 2023

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Better writer than me!!

C. Cross

Handy edition but no 'Moon Under Water?'

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 3, 2022

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As someone who wishes Orwell was more often read than quoted I bought this mainly for the journalism and as a more convenient replacement for my old Penguin Classics Collected Journalism, Essays and Letters.

Scanning the contents page I can see the essays I'd expect to see; The Lion and the Unicorn, A Hanging and Why I Write alongside his more obscure works including the celebrated article on tea-making (Christopher Hitchens was a fan) and his accusation that the Billy Bunter was written by a committee (it wasn't).

The omission, unless I'm missing something is his much loved essay on the perfect pub, 'The Moon Under Water'. Its available on the Orwell Foundation website and the 79p this collection cost on Kindle is less than the cost of a half in one of the Wetherspoons named after his fictional pub (I imagine) so not a huge loss but an odd one nonetheless.

To end on a positive note this edition includes Orwell's juvenilia, 'Awake! Oh Men of England' the most un-Orwell-like piece of jingoism he wrote while at Eton and which he refers to but I've never read.

5 people found this helpful

Saxchappy

Prescient

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 11, 2022

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Works of genius with much to tell (and warn) us about the modern world. Orwell’s review of Mein Kampf, for example, gives a chilling reminder of Burke’s adage that ‘the only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing’ Essential reading.

Mr. Indecisive

Good Collection

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 3, 2022

Verified Purchase

Easy to navigate. Bought it last week to read 1984 and Animal Farm and then others at a more leisurely pace.
The bane of Kindle editions is typos, but I only found one in Animal Farm and a couple in 1984. The latter does seem to have been Americanised though, unless Orwell wrote 'labor'. And in 'Coming up for Air' would Orwell have written 'far less trees' - perhaps.
I'm finding that 'Road to Wigan Pier' has many more typos, including '£' consistently rendered as 'L' and many hyphenations from scanning.

One person found this helpful

bernardo

Forget Netflix!!...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 18, 2022

Verified Purchase

...Buy this instead....pick and choose what you read. Bargain of the century.

Alma Boulton

Delighted to get so many books in small space!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 17, 2022

Verified Purchase

Great

a foodie

A bargain, but laid out with inattention to detail

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 13, 2021

Verified Purchase

First, it's hard to complain for the price of $2 for all his important works. And most of the prose makes it through okay. Still, there are a few items that bug me. At the beginning of 1984, Winston sees the Newspeak slogans:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
And in a printed text, those would be bold faced and centered. Here's what the kindle version looks like:
WAR IS PEACEFREEDOM IS SLAVERYIGNO-
RANCE IS STRENGTH
Loses a lot of impact, eh? Likewise, the most famous line from Animal Farm is butchered:
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUALBUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
A little proofreading would have helped a lot. And the illustrations: in 1984, there's a picture of the famous poster "Big Brother is Watching You" shows a sorta thuggish-looking guy without a moustache. The description in the text describes Big Brother as having a moustache. Why is that important? Well, this was written during the rule of Stalin, and I can't help but think that Orwell chose that detail intentionally.
Still, for $2 you can't complain too much, but the sloppiness of this compilation does detract from its impact.

20 people found this helpful

JohnnyN

Heavy going! I persevered, but not for me.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 23, 2022

Verified Purchase

Firstly I didn't read any reviews but downloaded the complete works to my Kindle.
On the Kindle it just registers as a complete book so you really have no idea where you are up to within each particular book until it ends! The % completed so far in the bottom left advances very, very, very slowly....
I am not sure if I am some sort of uncultured philistine but I found most of the books very hard going & for me there is nothing within that you would call a page-turner. Some nights I had barely read a couple of pages (in my larger than normal font size) before my eyelids were closing - in all it took me over 8 months to complete the lot, in the order that they are published.
Clearly Orwell had some socialist views, which surface amongst the text. Some of the content are stories, some of the content is social commentary.
I am not sure how it all equates into modern times but if we assess how much airtime the BBC gave to PARTYGATE - I got to the point of not caring, I expect those at the top to do what they want, no matter which colour party line they're from - just like the hierarchy in Animal Farm ultimately did.
The finale is 1984, not really what I was expecting & the appendix to that book at the end may have made the book easier to read had it been at the beginning. Very confusing at times.
Maybe some will suggest that I am uncultured but at times I wondered if in places his musings / ramblings were just that.
Despite having Kindle Prime at the time I had to buy this complete works for 49p or 99p & ultimately cancelled my Kindle Prime membership as I was not downloading anything else & I regret not doing that at the start as I wasted 1, 2, 3 or even more months whilst wading through this.
Was there a high point, I really cannot recall. Yes some of the stories are from a different era but some are mere fiction in the most bizarre terms.

2 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Great writer author of last century's political novels

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 24, 2021

Verified Purchase

Nothing to dislike from a social point, this has George Orwell's , complete works.

Animal Farm & 1984 explain the totalitarian state.

The journalism marvelous.

Not necessarily uplifting but brilliant in facilitating understanding of politics.

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The George Orwell Complete Collection: 1984; Animal Farm; Down and Out in Paris and London; The Road to Wigan Pier; Burmese Days; Homage to Catalonia; Essays; and More

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From Canada

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From other countries

The George Orwell Complete Collection: 1984; Animal Farm; Down and Out... › Customer reviews

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The George Orwell Complete Collection: 1984; Animal Farm; Down and Out in Paris and London; The Road to Wigan Pier; Burmese Days; Homage to Catalonia; Essays; and More

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From Canada

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From other countries

The George Orwell Complete Collection: 1984; Animal Farm; Down and Out...

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Customer reviews