The war broadcasts

This volume, with its companian "The War Commentaries", re-creates the grim purposeful mood of Britain between Dunkirk and D-Day.

The book brings together all the surviving BBC talks written and presented by Orwell during 1942 and 1943.Some of the talks are political: on sabotage, on rationing.

Many are literary: adaptations of plays or stories by H.G.

Wells, Hans Anderson and Anatole France among others; assessments of writers who influenced Orwell, including Swift, Shaw and Oscar Wilde.

A selection of the correspondence from several of the contributors to Orwell's programmes includes letters form E.M.

Forster, Mulk Raj Anand, T.S. Eliot and Cyril Connolly.