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Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length memoir by renowned English author, George Orwell. Summary of the Book Partly autobiographical in nature, this book narrates the adventures of a penniless British writer among the underprivileged society of two great cities, Paris and London. The book is divided in two parts. The first part is the account of a writer living below the poverty line in Paris and the experience of casual and manual labor in restaurant kitchens. The second part of the book is the author’s travelogue as he observes the dark world of tramps, homeless people and free lodging houses in London. An Orwellian picture at its bleakest and best, this book offers readers a look into the melancholy life of a writer bogged down by circumstances. About George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair, better known to the world as George Orwell, was an English essayist, novelist and journalist. He is mostly remembered for his novels Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia and 1984. He is considered to have inspired much of the late twentieth century dystopian culture, in fact, his work is considered so definitive that the world Orwellian has entered the language merely to describe totalitarian or authoritarian social practices.