On this day in 1937 W. H. Auden's Spain was published in England; the proceeds from sales of this pamphlet-length poem went to the Spanish Medical Aid Committee, one of a number of international organizations supporting the anti-Franco cause, and a group which Auden had tried to join as an ambulance driver in Spain just months earlier. One who would have had need of such aid was George Orwell: also on this day in 1937, and also in Spain while fighting for the Republican cause, George Orwell was shot in the throat in front-line fighting. ... FULL STORY »
