As a magistrate his methods were simple. Even for the vastest bribe he would never sell the decision of a case, because he knew that a magistrate who gives wrong judgements is caught sooner or later. His practice, a much safer one, was to take bribes from both sides and then decide the case on strictly legal grounds. This won him a useful reputation for impartiality.
Published in the USA in 1934 and the UK in 1935, Burmese Days was George Orwell’s first novel. An examination of the debasing effect of empire on occupied and occupier, the novel follows John Flory, a timber-merchant in 1920s Burma (where Orwell himself served as an imperial policeman). Disillusioned by imperial life at the European Club, hope apparently arrives in the female form of Elizabeth Lackersteen. Meanwhile, the magistrate U Ko Phin sets out to smear Dr Veraswami, Flory’s best friend.
More by Orwell related to Burmese Days
Preliminary sketches
- 1. John Flory – My Epitaph
- 2. Extract, Preliminary to Autobiography
- 3. Extract, the Autobiography of John Flory
- 4. An Incident in Rangoon
- 5. Extract, A Rebuke to the Author, John Flory
Essays
Reviews
- Anonymous review of Burmese Interlude by C. V. Warren
- Anonymous review of Trials in Burma by Maurice Collis
More about Burmese Days
On Orwell and Burma
- Alan Cox: A reading of ‘An Incident in Rangoon’ (video)
- Peter Davison: Introduction to Burmese Days preliminaries
- Julio Etchart: Burmese Days revisited
- Liam Hunt: Why Orwell went to Burma (Finlay Publisher)
- Douglas Kerr: Orwell, Kipling and Empire
- Emma Larkin: Introduction to Burmese Days
- Emma Larkin: Extract from Finding George Orwell in Burma (NPR)
- UCL podcast: Gill Furlong, Ryan Kiggell and Jean Seaton
On Burma
- Launch Debate 2010: What next for Burma?
- Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2010: The future of Burma
- Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2010: Dispatches – Orphans of Burma’s Cyclone Q&A