A Clergymans Daughter

A Clergyman’s Daughter by George Orwell follows the life of twenty-eight-year-old Dorothy Hare, who endures a life of drudgery and self-sacrifice in her father’s household, helping him manage debts and making costumes for local fundraisers. After being seen in the arms of Mr. Warburton, a local libertine, by the village gossip, Dorothy suffers a breakdown and, struck by amnesia, embarks on a journey that leads her to join vagrants, pick hops in Kent, stay in a hotel for working women, and sleep rough on the streets of London. First published in 1935, this experimental novel depicts a protagonist who rebels against, yet is ultimately crushed by, the oppressive society around her, foreshadowing themes explored in Orwell’s later works such as Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Nineteen Eighty-Four.