Keep the Aspidistra Flying (Annotated)

Keep the Aspidistra Flying is George Orwell's mordant 1936 novel of lower-middle-class rebellion, set amid the shabby boarding houses, bookshops, tea rooms, and advertising offices of interwar London. Through Gordon Comstock, a minor poet who renounces "the money-god" only to find himself humiliated by poverty, Orwell blends social satire, psychological realism, and bleak comedy. The aspidistra—em...