Written in 1935, Keep the Aspidistra Flying was Orwell’s fourth published work and his third novel. Orwell, far from satisfied with the outcome, subsequently wrote,
There are two or three books which I am ashamed of and have not allowed to be reprinted or translated, and that [Keep the Aspidistra Flying] is one of them […]At that time I simply hadn’t a book in me, but I was half starved and had to turn out something to bring in £100 or so. (CEJL 4: 241)
However, in castigating Keep the Aspidistra Flying so unreservedly Orwell (always his own sternest critic) fails to identify the novel’s descriptive and observational strengths and the significant iterative role its anti-hero, Gordon Comstock, played as a pre-cursor to Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The plot follows Comstock, a struggling poet,...
Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.
1800 words
Citation: Williams, Nigel. "Keep the Aspidistra Flying". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 May 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4252, accessed 13 December 2025.]
