Down and Out in Paris and London - Publication

Publication

Orwell's first version of Down and Out was called "A Scullion's Diary". Completed in October 1930, it used only his Paris material. He offered it to Jonathan Cape in the summer of 1931. Cape rejected it in the autumn. A year later he offered "a fatter typescript (the London chapters had been added)" to Faber & Faber, where T. S. Eliot, then an editorial director, also rejected it.

It was in the home of Mabel Fierz, who had, with her husband, a London businessman named Francis, been for a number of years a visitor to Southwold in the summer, and who was on friendly terms with the Blairs, that Orwell discarded the typescript. Fierz at this point took it to a literary agent, Leonard Moore, who "recognised it as a 'natural' for the new house of Gollancz." Victor Gollancz was prepared to publish the work, subject to the removal of bad language and some identifiable names, and offered an advance of £40. The title improvised by Gollancz, Confessions of a Down and Outer bothered Orwell. "Would The Confessions of a Dishwasher do as well?" he asked Moore. "I would rather answer to dishwasher than down & out." At the last minute, Gollancz shortened the title to Down and Out in Paris and London. The author, after possibilites including "X," "P.S. Burton" (an alias Orwell had used on tramping expeditions), "Kenneth Miles" and "H. Lewis Allways" had been considered, was renamed "George Orwell." Orwell did not wish to publish under his own name Eric Blair, and Orwell was the name he used from then on for his main works—although many periodical articles were still published under the name Eric Blair. Down and Out in Paris and London was published on 9 January 1933 and received favourable reviews from, among others, C. Day Lewis, WH Davies, Compton Mackenzie and JB Priestley. It was subsequently published by Harper & Brothers in New York. Sales were low, however, until December 1940, when Penguin Books printed 55,000 copies for sale at sixpence.

A French translation, which Orwell admired, by RN Raimbault and Gwen Gilbert, entitled La Vache Enragée, was published by Éditions Gallimard, on 2 May 1935, with a preface by Panait Istrati and an introduction by Orwell.