Episode 1

An overweight, married, middle-aged insurance salesman surveys his life while reflecting on the country he finds himself living in.

George Orwell's novel - written in 1939 - was published just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

It offers premonitions of the impending conflict with images of an idyllic Thames-side Edwardian-era childhood at the same time as taking a rather dim view of capitalism and its effects on the best of rural England.

The reviews were among the best that Orwell had received for a novel. It sold 3,000 copies - a considerable improvement on the response to his previous works.

Omnibus of the first five of ten parts abridged by Ellin Stein.

Read by Tim McInnerny.

Producer: Clive Brill

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in January 2020.