Down and Out in Paris and London, autobiographical work by George Orwell, published in 1933. Orwell's first published book, it contains essays in which actual events are recounted in a fictionalized form. This fictional memoir narrates often with humor the adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-outs of two great cities and, reflects the author's preoccupation with social inequality and the conditions that create homelessness. The book begins by describing the protagonist's s ...