George Orwell 
The Road to Wigan Pier 

First published in 1937, George Orwell’s first socialist book was an original and unorthodox political treatise entitled ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’. 



The book begins by describing his experiences when he went to live among the destitute and unemployed miners of northern England, sharing and observing their lives; it ends in a series of sharp criticisms of existing socialist movements. It combines mordant reporting with a tone of generous anger that was to characterise Orwell’s subsequent writing.



By the time ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ was in print, Orwell was in Spain; he went to report on the Civil War there and stayed to join the Republican militia.