Victor Gollancz personally commissioned Orwell to write about the distressed north of England in January 1936. After Orwell handed in his typescript a little before Christmas Day 1936, he immediately left to fight in Spain. Shortly afterwards the book was selected for publication by the Left Book Club.
This meant a print run of 47, 340 copies instead of 2, 150, so bringing Orwell to a much wider audience. The first part of Orwell's account, Gollancz wrote in LEFT NEWS in April 1937, 'has done, perhaps in a greater degree than any previous book, what the [Left Book] Club is meant to do - it has provoked thought and discussion of the keenest kind'. All copies of the original Left Book Club and first public editions of THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER were sold.
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