The Road to Wigan Pier is a powerful non-fiction work by George Orwell, originally published in 1937. It's divided into two parts: the first provides a stark, first-hand account of the grim living conditions, poverty, and unemployment endured by the working class in the industrial north of England during the Great Depression. Orwell meticulously details the squalor of the coal mines and the struggle for survival. The second part is a more argumentative essay reflecting on his experiences and dissecting the attitudes of the middle class towards socialism, often critically examining its proponents. This book offers an invaluable historical document and a profound social commentary on class division and political thought in interwar Britain.