Orwell, in his essay “Good Bad Books” (2 Nov. 1945), writes, “A type of book which we hardly seem to produce in these days, but which flowered with great richness in the late nineteenth centuries, is what Chesterton called the ‘good bad book’: that is, the kind of book that has no literary pretensions but which remains readable when more serious productions have perished….But apart from thrillers, there were the minor humorous writers of the period. For example, Pett Ridge – but I admit his full-length books no longer seem readable – E. Nesbit (The Treasure Seekers), George Birmingham, who was good so long as he kept off politics…” (in All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays, pg. 248-49)
