Burmese Days. ORWELL, George.

First British edition of the author's first novel and second book, following Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). Burmese Days was based on Orwell's service in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922 to 1927. The work was initially rejected by Gollancz amid concerns that its caustic critique of colonialism might be considered libellous to those portrayed, so it was published in America the year previous to its publication in Britain. For the British edition, Orwell changed the names of characters based on real people and wrote a new author's note, spuriously claiming that "all the characters in this book are entirely fictitious". Cyril Connolly reviewed Burmese Days as "an admirable novel. It is a crisp, fierce, and almost boisterous attack on the Anglo-Indian. The author loves Burma, he goes to great length to describe the vices of the Burmese and the horror of the climate, but he loves it, and nothing can palliate for him, the presence of a handful of inefficient complacent public school types who make their living there. I liked it and recommend it to anyone who enjoys a spate of efficient indignation, graphic description, excellent narrative, excitement, and irony tempered with vitriol" (New Statesman and Nation, p. 18). Fenwick A.2c. Cyril Connolly, "New Novels", New Statesman and Nation, 6 July 1935. Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in green. Cloth a little rubbed, spine leaning, extremities slightly bumped with occasional spots of wear, ring stains to rear cover: a very good copy.