Down and Out in Paris and London

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Down and Out in Paris and London (gutenberg.net.au) THE rue du Coq d’Or, Paris, seven in the morning. A succession of furious, choking yells from the street. Madame Monce, who kept the little hotel opposite mine, had come out on to the pavement to address a lodger on the third floor. Her bare feet were stuck into sabots and her grey hair was streaming down.

Fate seemed to be playing a series of extraordinarily unamusing jokes. George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

There is only one way to make money at writing, and that is to marry a publisher’s daughter. George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level. George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

Iron Age (Wikipedia) The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Copper and Bronze Ages. It has also been considered as the final Age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progressing to protohistory (before written history). In this usage, it is preceded by the Stone Age (subdivided into the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic) and Bronze Age. These concepts originated in describing Iron Age Europe and the Ancient Near East, but they now include other parts of the Old World.

The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people — people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from normal standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work. Some of the lodgers in our hotel lived lives that were curious beyond words. George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

Down and Out in Paris and London (Wikipedia) Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. Its target audience was the middle- and upper-class members of society—those who were more likely to be well educated—and it exposes the poverty existing in two prosperous cities: Paris and London. The first part is an account of living in near-extreme poverty and destitution in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp’s perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins.