The Road to Wigan Pier
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The Road to Wigan Pier was written by George Orwell and published in 1937. It is a sociological look at living conditions in the industrial north of England before World War II.
The name of the book comes from a music hall routine by a British comedian. Although a pier is a structure built out into the water from the shore, in Britain the term has the connotation of a seaside holiday (somewhat similar to the term boardwalk in the United States). Wigan was a small, grimy coal town on a river which was accessed by some boats via an offloading structure, though it primarily used land transport. Hence the music-hall joke was that a coal town had its own seaside resort, and Orwell's selection of the phrase in his title was that socialism could improve work life to an unprecedented degree, even in a coal town.
See Also
External links
- The Road to Wigan Pier (http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/index.html) - Searchable, indexed etext.
- The Road to Wigan Pier (http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/books/wiganpier.htm) Complete book with publication data and search feature.
- Orwell answers a question about Wigan Pier (http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/wiganpier-bbc.htm) Excerpt from a broadcast of the BBC's Overseas Service.