Homage to Catalonia
London: Secker and Warburg, 1938.
First edition, first printing. [vi], 314 pp. Bound in publisher's light green cloth lettered in gilt on spine, green topstain; lacking the dust jacket. Very Good+ with light wear, soiling, and mottling to cloth. Foxing to textblock edges, endpapers, and first and last few pages, offsetting to free endpapers. Slightly over-opened at title page. Fenwick A.6a.
The first edition of George Orwell's disillusioned memoir of his time serving in the Spanish Civil War. Readers sympathetic to the Republicans were dismayed by his account of the internal strife that tore apart the leftist front, and the Daily Telegraph suggested that his memoir lead to the conclusion that "perhaps only Franco can save Spain from tearing herself to pieces." The unity that was ultimately imposed by the victorious general came at a high cost: tens of thousands of Spaniards were executed after the war, and hundreds of thousands sent to concentration camps. Homage to Catalonia, of course, was banned.
Price: $3,200