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The essay examines the lasting popularity of works not usually considered great literature. Orwell defines a "good bad book" as "the kind of book that has no literary pretensions but which remains readable when more serious productions have perished."
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are also mentioned as writers "whom it is quite impossible to call 'good' by any strictly literary standard, but who are natural novelists and who seem to attain sincerity partly because they are not inhibited by good taste."
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as the exemplar of a writer who is cerebral without being artistic. Orwell wrote, "Enough talent to set up dozens of ordinary writers has been poured into
Wyndham Lewis's so-called novels, such as
95:. It is an unintentionally ludicrous book, full of preposterous melodramatic incidents; it is also deeply moving and essentially true; it is hard to say which quality outweighs the other."
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185:. Yet it would be a very heavy labour to read one of these books right through. Some indefinable quality, a sort of literary vitamin, which exists even in a book like
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Orwell claims that "perhaps the supreme example of the 'good bad' book is
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on 2 November 1945. After Orwell's death, the essay was republished in
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Politics vs. Literature: An
Examination of Gulliver's Travels
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as the originator of the term, as seen in his defences of
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Orwell in
Tribune: 'As I Please' and Other Writings
1000:Works originally published in Tribune (magazine)
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384:
77:and detective stories in the 1901 collection
295:Brian Redhead with Kenneth McLeish (eds.),
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194:
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173:He presented Vorticist painter and writer
335:The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell
299:. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1981.
286:, A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
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42:Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays
98:Other examples he gives include the
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271:London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
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869:Inside the Whale and Other Essays
754:Politics and the English Language
719:A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray
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58:to outlive the complete works of
796:Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
789:Second Thoughts on James Burnham
490:Down and Out in Paris and London
353:. Henry Holt and Company. 2003.
52:Orwell concludes: "I would back
705:Confessions of a Book Reviewer
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712:Decline of the English Murder
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775:The Prevention of Literature
323:. Methuen/Politico's. 2006.
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761:The Politics of Starvation
659:Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool
564:Spilling the Spanish Beans
447:Keep the Aspidistra Flying
248:George Orwell bibliography
221:The notion is inverted in
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631:Raffles and Miss Blandish
624:Poetry and the Microphone
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825:Such, Such Were the Joys
617:The Lion and the Unicorn
603:The Art of Donald McGill
596:My Country Right or Left
195:Related essays by Orwell
191:, is absent from them."
990:Essays by George Orwell
782:Riding Down from Bangor
211:Riding Down from Bangor
498:The Road to Wigan Pier
439:A Clergyman's Daughter
199:Orwell also discusses
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955:The Orwell Foundation
680:Reflections on Gandhi
673:Toward European Unity
319:Anderson, Paul (ed).
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915:Eileen O'Shaughnessy
861:Betrayal of the Left
733:The Moon Under Water
645:Notes on Nationalism
610:England Your England
557:Shooting an Elephant
471:Nineteen Eighty-Four
145:The minor novelists
139:King Solomon's Mines
910:Victor Gollancz Ltd
698:Books v. Cigarettes
652:The Sporting Spirit
506:Homage to Catalonia
337:. Cambridge. 2007.
333:Rodden, John (ed.)
284:Fifty Orwell Essays
209:in his 1946 essay "
167:A. S. M. Hutchinson
33:first published in
939:Why Orwell Matters
905:Secker and Warburg
666:The English People
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455:Coming Up for Air
343:978-0-521-67507-9
305:978-0-340-27447-7
297:The Anti-Booklist
223:The Anti-Booklist
116:The Eye of Osiris
108:R. Austin Freeman
92:Uncle Tom's Cabin
85:Orwell's examples
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64:George Moore
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995:1945 essays
847:As I Please
839:Collections
803:Why I Write
463:Animal Farm
110:'s stories
984:Categories
482:Nonfiction
259:References
217:Other uses
895:Orwellian
543:The Spike
536:A Hanging
106:stories,
827:" (1952)
805:" (1946)
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237:See also
45:(1950).
888:Related
423:Fiction
127:Dracula
104:Raffles
36:Tribune
971:Portal
960:Statue
927:(1949)
880:(1946)
872:(1940)
864:(1941)
521:Essays
509:(1938)
501:(1937)
493:(1933)
474:(1949)
466:(1945)
458:(1939)
450:(1936)
442:(1935)
434:(1934)
416:Novels
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165:, and
817:1950s
574:1940s
528:1930s
690:1946
355:ISBN
339:ISBN
325:ISBN
301:ISBN
229:and
179:Tarr
136:and
102:and
225:by
213:".
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62:or
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