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London, Jack; Orwell, George (Introduction).
Love of Life and other Stories.
Publisher: Paul Elek, London;
Date of Publication: 1946
Stock Code: 15535
First edition thus. Duodecimo, pp., 290. Publisher’s original scarlet cloth; titled in gilt to spine; white end-papers. In the original unclipped pictorial dust-jacket. Minor loss to corners and spine-tips of jacket; one further nick to lower panel; creases to edges; soiling to lower panel. Cloth and gilt bright, the binding strong and square. Internally clean. A very good copy in like jacket. A collection of short stories by working-class radical author Jack London. This edition includes the first printing of George Orwell’s introduction. In a mixed but arguably fair review Orwell attempts to reframe London according to the contemporary political movements of communism, anarchism, and Naziism. Orwell and London had a shared sensibility with Orwell frequently acknowledging his literary and political debt to London, most obviously in their social reportage. The People of the Abyss (1903) for instance being a precursor to Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier. Copies of this work in the original dust-jacket are scarce. £95.00