<P> "Such, Such Were the Joys" is a long autobiographical essay by the English writer George Orwell . </P> <P> In the piece, Orwell describes his experiences between the ages of eight and thirteen, in the years before and during World War I (from September 1911 to December 1916), while a pupil at a preparatory school: St Cyprian's, in the seaside town of Eastbourne, in Sussex . The essay offers various reflections on the contradictions of the Edwardian middle and upper class world - view, on the psychology of children, and on the experience of oppression and class conflict . </P> <P> It was probably drafted in 1939--40, revised in 1945--46, and not completed until May or June 1948 . It was first published by the Partisan Review in 1952, two years after Orwell's death . </P> <P> The veracity of the stories it contains about life at St. Cyprian's has been challenged by a number of commenters, including Orwell's contemporaries at the school and biographers, but its powerful writing and haunting observations have made it one of Orwell's most commonly anthologised essays . </P>

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