Good Bad Books
Encyclopedia
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
first published in Tribune
Tribune (magazine)
Tribune is a democratic socialist weekly, founded in 1937 published in London. It is independent but supports the Labour Party from the left...
on 2 November 1945. After Orwell's death, the essay was republished in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays
Shooting an Elephant
"Shooting an Elephant" is an essay by George Orwell, first published in the literary magazine New Writing in the autumn of 1936 and broadcast by the BBC Home Service on 12 October 1948....
(1950).
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."
Orwell concludes: "I would back Uncle Tom's Cabin to outlive the complete works of Virginia Woolf or George Moore, though I know of no strictly literary test which would show where the superiority lies."
He acknowledges G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction....
as the originator of the term, as seen in his defences of penny dreadful
Penny Dreadful
A penny dreadful was a type of British fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing an penny...
s and detective stories in the 1901 collection The Defendant.
Orwell's examples
Orwell claims that "perhaps the supreme example of the 'good bad' book is Uncle Tom's CabinUncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
. 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."
Other examples he gives include the Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
and Raffles stories, Bram Stoker's Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
, Helen's Babies
Helen's Babies (novel)
Helen's Babies is a humorous novel by American journalist and author John Habberton, first published in 1876.The book's full title is: Helen's Babies: With Some Account of Their Ways Innocent, Crafty, Angelic, Impish, Witching, and Repulsive, Also, a Partial Record of Their Actions During Ten Days...
and King Solomon's Mines
King Solomon's Mines
King Solomon's Mines is a popular novel by the Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. It tells of a search of an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain for the missing brother of one of the party...
.
The minor novelists W. L. George
W. L. George
Walter Lionel George was an English writer, chiefly known for his popular fiction, which included feminist, pacifist, and pro-labor themes.-Life:...
, Leonard Merrick
Leonard Merrick
Leonard Merrick was an English novelist. Although largely forgotten today, he was widely admired by his peers, J. M. Barrie called Merrick the "novelist's novelist."-Life:...
, J. D. Beresford
J. D. Beresford
John Davys Beresford was an English writer, now remembered for his early science fiction and some short stories in the horror story and ghost story genres. His Hampdenshire Wonder was a major influence on Olaf Stapledon. His other science-fiction novels includeThe Riddle of the Tower, about a...
, Ernest Raymond
Ernest Raymond
Ernest Raymond was a British novelist, best known for his 1922 book, Tell England, set in World War I. His next biggest success was We, The Accused which was made into a BBC drama starring Ian Holm in 1980. He wrote over fifty novels. Raymond's post-war autobiography, Please You, Draw Near, was...
, May Sinclair
May Sinclair
May Sinclair was the pseudonym of Mary Amelia St. Clair , a popular British writer who wrote about two dozen novels, short stories and poetry. She was an active suffragist, and member of the Woman Writers' Suffrage League...
, and A. S. M. Hutchinson 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."
Related essays by Orwell
Helen's BabiesHelen's Babies (novel)
Helen's Babies is a humorous novel by American journalist and author John Habberton, first published in 1876.The book's full title is: Helen's Babies: With Some Account of Their Ways Innocent, Crafty, Angelic, Impish, Witching, and Repulsive, Also, a Partial Record of Their Actions During Ten Days...
by John Habberton
John Habberton
John Habberton was an American author. He spent nearly twenty years as the literary and drama critic for the New York Herald, but he is best known for his stories about early California life, many of which were collected in his 1880 book Romance of California Life: Illustrated by Pacific Slope...
is also discussed by Orwell in his 1946 essay "Riding Down from Bangor
Riding Down from Bangor
Riding Down from Bangor is an essay published in 1946 by the English author George Orwell. In it, he muses on 19th century American children's literature and the type of society it portrayed.-Background:...
".
Other uses
The notion is inverted in The Anti-Booklist by Brian RedheadBrian Redhead
Brian Leonard Redhead was a British author, journalist and broadcaster. He was probably best known as a co-presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 which he worked on from 1975 until 1993, shortly before his death...
and Kenneth McLeish, a collection of critiques of books generally thought to be "good".
Further reading
- Anderson, Paul (ed). Orwell in Tribune: 'As I Please' and Other Writings. Methuen/Politico's. 2006. ISBN 1-84275-155-7
- Rodden, John (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell. Cambridge. 2007. ISBN 978-0-521-67507-9
- Taylor, D. J.D. J. TaylorDavid John Taylor is a British critic, novelist and biographer. After attending school in Norwich, he read Modern History at St John's College, Oxford, and has received the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award for his biography of George Orwell. His novel Derby Day was longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker...
Orwell: The Life. Henry Holt and Company. 2003. ISBN 0-8050-7473-2