Shooting an Elephant: George Orwell

`Shooting an Elephant` is Orwell`s searing and painfully honest account of his experience as a police officer in imperial Burma; killing an escaped elephant in front of a crowd `solely to avoid looking a fool`. The other masterly essays in this collection include classics such as `My Country Right or Left`, `How the Poor Die` and `Such, Such were the Joys`, his memoir of the horrors of public school, as well as discussions of Shakespeare, sleeping rough, boys` weeklies and a spirited defence of English cooking. Opinionated, uncompromising, provocative and hugely entertaining, all show Orwell`s unique ability to get to the heart of any subject.

A collection of witty and incisive non-fiction, George Orwell`s Shooting an Elephant includes an introduction by Jeremy Paxman in Penguin Modern Classics.