Excerpt from The Road to Wigan Pier The Road to Wigan Pier was first published in England in 1937. It was commissioned by the Left Book Club, which flourished in the thirties. The aim of the club, according to one of its brochures, which reflects the temper of the time, was to help in the terribly urgent struggle for World Peace a better social economic order against Fascism, by giving (to all who are determined to play their part in this struggle) such knowledge as will immensely increase their efficiency. Members of the club received each month a book se lected by a board of editors made up of Victor Gollancz, Harold Laski, and John Strachey. The book selected was issued in a special format and sold to members at the low price of two shillings Sixpence. In 1937 the club claimed more than members. The board of editors asked George Orwell to write a documentary report on conditions among the unem ployed in the north of England. He carried out this assignment, though he wrote about people who were still working as well as about the unemployed. In the latter part of the book, however, he went on to discuss, from his own Socialist but highly individual point of View, what he considered to be wrong with Socialism and Socialists. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.