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existence of a Frank Richards in his essay "Boys' Weeklies." He began his career in 1904 when he
sketched a drawing on the back of a postcard to cheer up a nephew in the hospital. By December
1905, Picture Postcard Magazine "picked him out as a designer whose cards would become "widely
popular.'" One card, no. 1772, designed in 1916, sold over three million copies. It was not of the kind
described by Orwell, but showed a little girl in a nightdress at which a puppy was tugging; the
caption read: "Please, Lord, excuse me a minute while I kick Fido!!" He fairly claimed that his cards
were not obscene but depicted situations with honest vulgarity, and he was depressed by the way his
art form was allowed to degenerate. See Tonie and Valmai Holt, Picture Postcards of the Golden
Age (1971), 91–93, Arthur Calder Marshall, Wish You Were Here (1966). Orwell, in commenting that
McGill was "a clever draughtsman," could not have known that, from 1897 to 1907, McGill worked
as an engineering draughtsman.
3. Air Raid Precautions.
4. An air-raid shelter built in the gardens of individual houses, capable of holding four to
six people in modest discomfort. It was designed by Sir William Paterson (1874–1956) at the
instigation of Sir John Anderson (1882–1958; Viscount, 1952) in 1938. More than three million
Andersons were built, and they are credited with saving many lives. A few have survived as
makeshift garden sheds.
5. Winston Churchill, in addressing the House of Commons, May 13,1940, said, "I would
say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government, "I have nothing to offer but
blood, toil, tears, and sweat.'"
No, Not One
6. Ecclesiastes VII: 15–17.
1. Ernst vom Rath (as "Vom" in the original) was Third Secretary at the German Embassy
in Paris. A Jewish youth, Herschel Grynszpan, shot him there on November 7, 1938, and he died of
wounds on November 9. Violent attacks on Jews and Jewish property—"Kristallnacht"—followed.
2. The Arandora Star was sunk in the Atlantic by a U-boat on July 2, 1940. It was
carrying 1,500 German and Italian internees from Britain to Canada; 613 were drowned.
Rudyard Kipling
3. Matthew XVIII:7 and Romans III: 10.
1. This essay took as its starting point the publication of A Choice of Kipling's Verse,
made and introduced by T. S. Eliot (December 1941).
Orwell here, as elsewhere, does not always quote exactly. He doubtless relied on memory, having a
good knowledge of what he was quoting. These errors are treated in two ways. The original is
corrected if the error does not seem significant, however slightly, to Orwell's argument or to the
impression the words might have made upon him. Thus "Hosts" is given its initial capital, as in
Kipling. If the form Orwell uses might have been important to him, the quote is left uncorrected; the