Folio Archives 146: Coming Up For Air by George Orwell 2001

Coming Up For Air by George Orwell 2001

This a fascinating book about absolutely nothing, or more precisely, a nobody.

It is a compelling autobiography of a fictitious middle-aged man, the most ordinary person you could imagine - a lower middle-class insurance salesman from the London suburbs who is overweight (well, actually, fat), drinks too much, dreams of going fishing, is obsessed with his false teeth, has a dead-end job, a domineering wife and two bratty children. He writes about his life from childhood to the time in which the book ends, which is in pre-war England of 1939, and muses about the inevitable next war. It is an amazingly easy read, and keeps you going in order to find out just what is going to happen next, and it is always something boringly ordinary. It is totally unlike any other book by Orwell.

There is no introduction, but there are eight black and white illustrations by Steven Devine that fit the mood of the 247 page book very well.

The book is bound in Cambric material (plasticised paper) printed with a wrap-around colour picture inset with a black and white illustration on both covers. The endpapers are plain mid-brown, and the slipcase is 23.5x15.5cm. and a plain mid-blue.

This book also appeared in 2001 as one of a five volume set of Orwell’s works.





























Five volume set – image from internet.


An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.

Thanks, Warwick. I'd forgotten how gloriously apposite the illustrations are. I last read the book over 40 years ago but your description brought it all back to life, if that's not going too far.

I own this set, but it's one of the UGLIEST FS has produced prior to the last 3 years or so. Just my opinion.

Warwick, was this book definitely issued as an individual volume? Folio 60 makes no reference to it (although there are several examples of volumes from other sets being issued individually and not recorded in Folio 60; it's quite possible this is what happened here).

>4 mboyne:
My copy is individually slipcased and not part of the set that I mention in the last line of the description.

My copy is part of the set. I would agree with wcarter's assessment of the novel: I think this is possibly the most underrated of Orwell's books.

>1 wcarter: "There is no introduction ... This book also appeared in 2001 as one of a five volume set of Orwell’s works."

There is a page of introduction to Coming Up for Air in Burmese Days, part of the general introduction by Peter Davison to the 5-book set.

I love this set, the illustrations are magnificent. I wasn't aware that these volumes were ever sold individually by Folio.