Reading widely about Orwell’s life and times has led me to collect all sorts of books which contextualised his work and times; including tomes written by his friends or the milieu he associated. The connection will not always be readily apparent as you skim and scan down this page but I do intend to make more notes alongside each title in coming years.

Abrams, Fran, Freedom’s Cause: Lives of the Suffragettes, London: Profile Trade, 2004. 288pp.

Acton, Harold, More Memoirs of an Aesthete, Hamish Hamilton, 1987. 412pp.

Ailesbury, Cedric, Marquess of, Setting My Watch By The Sundial, Wiltshire: Charles H. Woodward, 1970. 112pp.

Alternês, Serge and Wainman, Alec, Live Souls: Citizens and Volunteers of Civil War Spain, Ronsdale Press, 2015. 304pp.

Bakewell, Micael, Fitzrovia: London’s Bohemia, London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 1999. 64pp.

Barber, Michael, Anthony Powell: A Life, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, 2005. 364pp.

Barbera, Jack and McBrien, William, Stevie: A Biography of Stevie Smith, Oxford University Press, 1985. 378pp.

Barfoot, C. M. & Healey, R. M., My Rebellious and Imperfect Eye, DQR Studies In Literature 33, Amsterdam: Brill Rodopi, 2002

Barker, Francis (ed.), 1936: The Sociology of Literature – Practices of Literature and Politics, University of Exeter, 1979. 398pp.

Buckland, Alfreda, The World of Donald McGill, Poole: Blandford Press, 1984. 128pp.

Brandt, Bill, Camera in London, Focal Press, 1948

British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC Handbook 1940, Norwich & London: Jarrold & Sons Ltd., 1940. 128pp.

British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC Handbook 1941, Norwich & London: Jarrold & Sons Ltd., 1941. 128pp.

Brockway, Fenner, Inside the Left: Thirty Years of Platform, Press, Prison and Parliament, 1942. 352pp. (first edition)

Brockway, Fenner, Outside the Right including a Lost Play and unpublished letters by Bernard Shaw, London: George Allen and Unwin,1963. 231pp. (first edition)

Brockway, Fenner, 98 Not Out, London: Quartet, 1986. (first edition)

Brockway, Fenner, Towards Tomorrow: The Autobiography of Fenner Brockway, London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1977. 280pp. (first edition)

Buddicom, Jacintha, The Compleat Workes of Cini Willoughby Dering, New York: Payson & Clarke, 1929. 80pp. (published anonymously)

Buddicom, Jacintha, Cat Poems, London: Leslie Frewin, 1973. 64pp. (Illustrated by the Author)

Card, Tim, Eton Renewed: A History of Eton College From 1860 to the Present Day, London: John Murray, 1994. 320pp.

Cardigan, The Earl of, Youth Goes East, London: Eveleigh Nash and Grayson, 1928

Cardigan, The Earl of, Amateur Pilot, London: Putnam, 1933

Cardigan, The Earl of, The Wardens of Savernake Forest, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949

Cardigan, The Earl of, I Walked Alone, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951

Chaney, Edward, Genius Friend: G.B. Edwards and the Book of Ebenezer Le Page, Blue Ormer Publishing, 2015. 416pp.

Cockett, Richard, David Astor and The Observer, Andre Deutsch Ltd, 1992. 390pp.

Coffield, Darren, Tales from the Colony Room: Soho’s Lost Bohemia, Unbound: Kindle Edition, 2020. 381pp.

Connolly, Cyril, Enemies of Promise, University of Chicago Press, 2008, 288pp.

Connolly, Cyril, The Golden Horizon, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1955. 596pp.

Connolly, Cyril, Evening Colonnade, London: David, Bruce and Watson, 1973

Cuming, E.D., A Vendor of Dreams, London: Hutchinson, 1923

Cuming, E. D., Idlings in Arcadia, New York: E P Dutton, 1935. 326pp.

Dakers, Alan, Ticklerton Tales History of Eaton-Under-Heywood, A. Dakers, 1991. 256pp.

Depasquale, Paul, Guy Boothby: His Life and Work, South Australia: Pioneer Books, 1982. 127pp (No. 13/100 limited edition)

Dixon, Mark, An Eton Schoolboy’s Album, London: Debrett’s Peerage Limited, 1985, 120pp.

Ealham, Chris, Anarchism And The City: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Barcelona, 1898-1937, AK Press, 2010. 263pp.

Elborough, Travis & Rennison, Nick, A London Year: 365 Days of City Life in Diaries, Journals and Letters, London: Frances Lincoln, 2013. 820pp. Kindle Edition.

Empson, Jacob, Hetta and William: A Memoir of a Bohemian Marriage, London: Author House, 2012. 335pp. Kindle Edition.

Farson, Daniel, Marie Lloyd & Music Hall, London: Tom Stacey Ltd., 1972. 166pp.

Finlay, DG, Once Around The Sun, London: WH Allen & Co., 1978

Finlay, DG, The Edge of Tomorrow, London: WH Allen & Co., 1979

Finlay, DG, Watchman, London: Century, 1984

Finlay, DG, The Grey Regard, London: Century, 1986

Finlay, DG, Graven Image, London: Century Hutchinson & Co., 1987

Finlay, DG, The Killing Glance, London: Arrow Books Ltd, 1989

Fisher, Clive, Cyril Connolly: A Nostalgic Life, London: MacMillan, 1995. 466pp.

Fothergill, Stephen, The Last Lamplighter: A Soho Education, London Magazine Editions, 2000. 144pp.

George Orwell Centenary Conference Program, Wellesley College May 1-3, 2003 (a much-appreciated gift from the generous Michael Casey)

Lea F. A., The Life of John Middleton Murry, Methuen, 1959. 378pp.

Lewis, Jeremy, David Astor, London: Jonathan Cape, 2016. 432pp. Kindle Edition

Lewis, Jeremy, Cyril Connolly: A Life, London: Pimlico, 2012. 672pp. Kindle Edition

Lloyd, Nick, Forgotten Places Barcelona and the Spanish Civil War, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015. 392pp.

Luke, Michael, David Tennant and the Gargoyle Years, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991. 212pp.

Mairet Philip, John Middleton Murry, 1958, Longmans, Green & Co.

Manley, Jeff; Bynoe, Robin (eds) Inez Holden; Late Stories: Punch and Powell, Anthony Powell Society, 2023. 150pp.

Mannin, Ethel, Rolling in the Dew, London: Jarrolds, 1940, 192pp.

Mansfield, Katherine, Stories By Katherine Mansfield, New York: Armed Services Editions, 1944. No. I-252. Selected, with a note about the author by her husband, John Middleton Murry)

Marlow, Joyce (ed), Suffragettes: The Fight for Votes for Women, London: Virago Press, 2015. 300pp.

Maugham, W, Somerset, The Moon and the Sixpence, Copyright Group. Kindle Edition, 2013

Maugham, W, Somerset, A Writer’s Notebook, Vintage Classics: Kindle Edition, 2011. 386pp.

McGill, Donald, Donald McGill: Banned Comic Postcards, Ryde: Greaves & Thomas, N.D.

McKean, Thomas, A Conversation with Ruth Pitter, Glenrothes: HappenStance, 2010

Meyer, Michael, Not Prince Hamlet: Literary and Theatrical Memoirs, Secker & Warburg, 1989. 291pp.

Millar, Eloise & Jordison, Sam, Literary London: A Book Lover’s Guide to the City, London: Michael O’Mara Books, 2016. 221pp.

Mitchell, David, The Fighting Pankhursts, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967. 352pp.

Montefiore, Janet, Men and Women Writers of the 1930s: The Dangerous Flood of History, Routledge, 2003

Mount, Ferdinand, Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes: My Early Life and Other Mistakes, London: Bloomsbury, 2008. 388pp.

Muggeridge, Malcolm, Like It Was – The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge, Collins, 1981. 560pp.

Murry, John Middleton, The Evolution of an Intellectual, Knopf, 1920. 226pp.

Murry, John Middleton, Between Two Worlds – An Autobiography, Jonathan Cape, 1935

Murry, John Middleton , Swift, Jonathan: A Critical Biography, London: Jonathan Cape, 1954. 508pp.

Neave, Jack Rudolph, The Surrender of Silence: A Memoir of Ironfoot Jack, King of the Bohemians, MIT Press, 2018. 272pp.

Nottingham, Chris, The Pursuit of Serenity: Havelock Ellis and the New Politics, Amsterdam University Press, 1999 400pp.

Nuremberg and the Moscow Trials, 1946. Single-sheet leaflet, printed on both sides. One side has a statement (concluding with the names of all the signatories, including H G Wells, Arthur Koestler, George Padmore, Julian Symons, F A Ridley and George Orwell asking for Natalia Trotsky to be given representation at the Nuremberg trials. The other side has 24 small photographs of the leaders of the Russian Revolution, giving in each case brief details of their fate. The bookseller procured it years ago from the estate of Tom Borstein.

Paßmann, Dirk F.; Vienken, Heinz J., The Library and Reading of Jonathan Swift: A Bio-Bibliographical Handbook – Part I: Swift’s Library, in Four Volumes, Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2003. 2416pp.

Phillips, William and Rahv, Philip (editors), The Partisan Reader, Ten Years of Partisan Review 1934-1944: An Anthology, New York: The Dial Press Inc., 1946. 688pp.

Plowman, Max. & Plowman, Dorothy Lloyd Sulman, Bridge into the Future: Letters of Max Plowman, London:  A. Dakers Ltd.. 787pp.

Powell, Anthony, To Keep the Ball Rolling: The Memoirs of Anthony Powell, Penguin Books Ltd, 1983. 458pp.

Rieger, Max, Espionaje En España, Barcelona: Ediciones Unidad, 1938. 232pp. (First edition with preface by José Bergamín; translation by Lucienne and Arturo Perucho)

Robertson, Leo, Compton Mackenzie: An Appraisal of His Literary Work, London: The Richards Press, 1954. 230pp.

Robinson, John Martin, The Travellers Club: A Bicentennial History 1819-2019, London: Libanus Press Ltd, 2018. 368pp.

Rodden, John, Of G-Men and Eggheads – The FBI and the New York Intellectuals, University of Illinois Press, 2017. 132pp.

Rust, William, The Story of the Daily Worker, London: People’s Press Printing Society, 1949

Scammel, Michael, Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual, London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 2010. 689pp.

Schimanski, Stefan & Treece, Henry (editors), Leaves in the Storm: A Book of Diaries, Lindsay Drummond, 1947. 299pp.

Sewell, Brocard, G.K.’s Weekly – An Appraisal, Aylesford Press, 1990

Shentalinsky, Vitaly, The KGB’s Literary Archive, London: Harvill Press, 1997. 336pp. (translated by John Crowfoot with an introduction by Robert Conquest)

Simper, Robert, The River Orwell and the River Stour (English Estuaries Series), Creekside Publishing. 84pp.

Spalding, Frances, Stevie Smith: A Critical Biography, 1990. 332pp.

Spurling, Hilary, The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell, London: Hamish Hamilton, 2002, 208pp.

Spurling, Hilary, The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell, Counterpoint LLC, 2003, 193pp.

Spurling, Hilary, Invitation To The Dance: A Handbook to Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, Cornerstone Digital; New Ed edition, 2011. 352pp.

Stourton, Edward, Auntie’s War: The BBC during the Second World War, London: Doubleday, 2017. 432pp.

Sullivan, Alvin, British Literary Magazines: The Modern Age, 1914-1984, Westport, Connecticut & London: Greenwood Press, 1986.

Taylor, DJ, Lost Girls: Love, War and Literature: 1939-51, London: Constable, 2019. 400pp.

Thomson, George Malcom, Martin Secker & Warburg: The First Fifty Years, Secker & Warburg, 1986. 87pp.

Tolley, A.T. (ed), John Lehmann. A Tribute, Ottowa: Carleton University Press, 1987. 166pp.

Townley, Simon (ed) The Victoria History of the County of Oxford Volume XVI: Henley-On-Thames and Environs, Boydell, 2011. 390pp.

Tovey, David, Polperro: Cornwall’s Forgotten Art Centre: Volume One: Pre-1920, Wilson Books, 2021. 256pp.

Tovey, David, Polperro: Cornwall’s Forgotten Art Centre: Volume Two: Post-1920, Wilson Books, 2021. 348pp.

Warburg, Fredric, An Occupation for a Gentleman, London: Hutchinson, 1959.

Warburg, Frederic, All Authors Are Equal, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1973. 310pp.

Wheen, Francis, The Soul of Indiscretion: Tom Driberg, poet, philanderer, legislator and outlaw – His Life and Indiscretions, London: 4th Estate, 2001. 464pp.

West, WJ., Truth Betrayed, Ronald P Frye & Co, 1987. 262pp.

White, Antonia, The B.B.C. at War, Wembley: British Broadcasting Company, 1942. 48pp. (printed in Australia)

Wilkinson, Gary, Wildflower, 2014 (DVD – 15 mins)

Wright, Adrian, John Lehmann: A Pagan Adventure, London: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, 1998. 324pp.