In late 1927, at the age of twenty-four, George Orwell relocated to a tiny flat on London's Portobello Road, and from there embarked on a series of exploratory "tramping" expeditions to the city's East End, then a place of great squalor and deprivation. Later he moved to Paris's bohemian Latin Quarter, where, in early 1929, during a bout of serious illness, he was the victim of a robbery that left him in a state of near destitution, forcing him to work punishing hours in a series of menial jobs, including as a restaurant dishwasher. These real-life experiences laid the foundations for what would be the young writer's first full-length work.

Populated by a troupe of colourful characters, replete with penetrating observations and cast in the limpid prose that would become Orwell's hallmark, Down and Out in Paris and London—published by Victor Gollancz in 1933—provides both an invaluable historical snapshot and an insight into the perennial social evils of inequality, poverty and alienation.