Viewed as too libelous to print in England until 1968, the title essay in this collection reveals the abuse Orwell experienced as a child at an expensive and snobbish boarding school and offers insights into his lifelong concern for the oppressed. "Why I Write"� describes Orwell's sense of political purpose, and the classic essay "Politics and the English Language"� insists on clarity and precision in communication in order to avoid the Newspeak later described in 1984. Other essays focus on Gandhi (he "disinfected the political air"�), Dickens ("no novelist has shown the same power of entering into the child's point of view"�), Kipling ("a jingo imperialist"�), Henry Miller (who told Orwell that involvement in the Spanish war was an act of an idiot), and England ("a family with the wrong members in control"�).