The Road to Wigan Pier

In January 1936, the thirty-two-year-old George Orwell left his home in London and travelled to the industrial north of England with the intention of experiencing first-hand the conditions in which the working-class poor were compelled to live their lives. During his two-month expedition he visited Manchester, Wigan and Liverpool in the north-west, then Sheffield, Leeds and Barnsley in Yorkshire, recording his impressions as he went in a diary that would later form the basis of one of the most significant works of literary reportage ever written.

Part sociological survey, part polemic about the potential benefits of socialism – as well as the failures and idiosyncrasies of many of its middle-class exponents – The Road to Wigan Pier represents a unique record of a country riven by class inequality and plagued by unemployment, inadequate housing, unsafe working conditions and other social ills, and provides an invaluable insight into the evolution of Orwell’s political consciousness.

The Road to Wigan Pier is part of Alma Orwell Collection which includes: Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Homage to Catalonia, Burmese Days, Coming Up for Air, A Clergyman’s Daughter and Down and Out in Paris and London.

Alma Classics is committed to making available a wide range of literature from around the globe. Most of the titles are enriched by an extensive critical apparatus, notes and extra reading material, as well as a selection of photographs. The texts are based on the most authoritative edition and edited using a fresh, accessible editorial approach. With an emphasis on production, editorial and typographical values, Alma Classics aspires to revitalize the whole experience of reading classics.

About the Author

Eric Blair (1903–50), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was a novelist, journalist and critic, best remembered for his seminal novels 1984 and Animal Farm, and for works of non-fiction such as The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia.