As the world shuddered on the brink of World War Two, the Spanish Civil War broke out. Set in 1936, this seminal memoir recounts George Orwell’s time spent volunteering in the Republican army.

First published in 1938, this is the personal account of Orwell’s service in the Spanish communist Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification (POUM). Homage to Catalonia is a fantastically detailed account of an ordinary foot soldier’s life in wartime. Writing in defence of democratic socialism, Orwell describes his days training in Barcelona at the height of Catalonia’s revolt for change, as well as the trials and dangers he faced fighting on the front lines in Aragon. The early memoir went on to provide the inspiration and motivation for the anti-totalitarian themes that would come to pervade his writing.