Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Keep the Aspidistra Flying is George Orwell's savagely satirical portrait of the literary life and is based loosely on his own experiences of writing life and working at Westrope’s Bookshop in Hampstead.

London, 1936. Gordon Comstock has declared war on the money god; and Gordon is losing the war. Nearly 30 and "rather moth-eaten already," a poet whose one small book of verse has fallen "flatter than any pancake," Gordon rejects money-worship and a steady job in advertising for the pursuit of creativity. But poverty soon bites, and with it his creative spirit disappears. Only his ever-faithful Rosemary can rouse him from the stupor and challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life.

Punctuated with autobiographical detail, Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying is a tragically comic account of one man’s struggle to escape from a materialistic life.