I can't decide what my preference order would be, but I can admit that whatever literary criticism has to say on the matter, and I suspect it disagrees with me,

I can't decide what my preference order would be, but I can admit that whatever literary criticism has to say on the matter, and I suspect it disagrees with me, I found "A clergyman's daughter" more fun to read than "Keep the aspidistra flying". You can read all nine of Eric Blair's books here: https://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-n-z.html#orwell https://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-n-z.html#orwell Sadly, those texts are not perfect. I noticed a number of OCR errors. Also, in "Down and out in Paris and London" there's a whole chapter about slang and swearing but nearly all of the swearing is replaced by ——! Perhaps all the printed editions are just the same; I don't know. Perhaps someone here has a modern critical edition and can answer that. It's chapter 32 and the 7th paragraph, for example, starting with "The swear words also change", has the sentence "The current London adjective, now tacked on to every noun, is ——." Does anyone have an edition that has the last word of that sentence?