Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

ORWELL, George.

Item Number: 104830

London: Secker & Warburg, 1959.

Early printing of Orwell’s classic social criticism of money-worship and status. Octavo, original cloth with gilt titles to the spine. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Ownership signature to the front free endpaper. Jacket design by Denis Piper.

Owell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying centers on the story of Gordon Comstock and his romantic ambition to defy the worship of the money and status, and the dismal life that results. Orwell wrote the book in 1934 and 1935 when he was living at various locations near Hampstead in London, and drew on his experiences in these and the preceding few years. At the beginning of 1928 he lived in lodgings in Portobello Road from where he started his tramping expeditions, sleeping rough and roaming in the poorer parts of London. The novel was adapted into a 1997 film of the same name directed by Robert Bierman and stars Richard E. Grant and Helena Bonham Carter.