Searchlight Books Explained

Searchlight Books was a series of essays published as hardback books, edited by T. R. Fyvel and George Orwell. The series was published by Secker & Warburg.^{[1] [2]}

The series was projected for 17 titles, of which ten were published during 1941-42, but bomb damage to Warburg's office and the destruction of his printer's paper stock led to the series being discontinued.

The first in the series, The Lion and the Unicorn, was published on 19 February 1941 with an initial run of 5,000 copies, but the number was raised to 7,500. A second printing of 5,000 copies was ordered in March 1941. It sold over 10,000 copies (and was among the most commercially successful of Orwell's books to that date). The destruction of the stock by bombs ended its sales.^[2]

Publications by Searchlight Books included the following:

• No 1: The Lion and the Unicorn (1941) by George Orwell
• No 2: Offensive Against Germany (1941) by Sebastian Haffner
• No 3: The Lesson of London by Ritchie Calder^[3]
• No 4: The English at War (1941) by Cassandra and Philip Zec
• No 5: The End of the Old School Tie by T. C. Worsley - with foreword by George Orwell^{[4] [5]}
• No 7: Above All Things - Liberty by Michael Foot
• No 8: The Artist and the New World by Cyril Connolly
• No 10: Struggle for the Spanish Soul (1941) by Arturo Barea^[6]
• No 11: The Case for African Freedom (1941)^[7] by Joyce Cary - with foreword by George Orwell
  • No 12: Can Britain and America Unite? by G. E. Catlin No 13: The Streets of Europe by Arthur Koestler
• No 15: The Moral Blitz: War Propaganda and Christianity by Bernard Causton^{[8] [9] [10]}
• No 16: Beyond the "Isms" by Olaf Stapledon
• No 18: Life and the Poet (1942) by Stephen Spender^{[11] [12]}

Number of publication not known

• Dover Front by Reginald Foster

Included in the initial project but published after the series was cancelled

• Parents' Revolt by Richard and Kathleen Titmuss^[9]

See also

• Bibliography of George Orwell

Notes and References

1. https://www.jstor.org/pss/260823 Costello, David R. (1989). "Searchlight Books and the Quest for a 'People's War', 1941-42", in: JContHist 24, 1989, p. 257.
2. Leab, Daniel J. "George Orwell The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius."
3. Štanský, Peter (2007). The First Day of the Blitz: September 7, 1940, p. 190. Yale University Press. Google Books. Retrieved 18 June 2013.
4. https://books.google.com/books?id=9e48AAAAIAAJ&pg=PR366 Watson, George and Ian Roy Willison (1969). The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, Volume 1. p. 691. CUP Archive.
5. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39207904 The end of the "old school tie" (Book, 1941) [WorldCat.org].
6. Horizon, p. 219. September 1941
7. http://home.planet.nl/~boe00905/OrwellCary.html Remembering George Orwell: "Foreword".
8. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/249396777 The moral blitz: war propaganda and christianity (Book, 1941)
9. [Newsinger, J.]
10. Atthill, Robin (1942). The Dublin Review, Volumes 210-213, pp. 87–88. The Dublin Review. Google Books. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
11. https://www.publishinghistory.com/searchlight-books-secker-warburg.html Searchlight Books (Secker & Warburg) - Book Series List.
12. https://books.google.com/books?id=e4kNqc_p6uYC&pg=PA14 Wilford, Hugh (2003). The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune?, p. 13. Routledge.