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At the corner of Pond Street and South End Green is a pizza house that used to be Booklover's Corner, a book shop where Orwell worked in 1934 and '35. When he was first working here, Orwell lived above the shop, writing Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Booklover's Corner was the inspiration for the book-selling passages in Aspidistra and also the source for his essay "Bookshop Memories". In February 1935 he was forced to seek other lodging and moved to 77 Parliament Hill.
"The bookshop, described by one customer as 'a
gloomy cave of a place', was until recently [1984], but after Orwell's time,
the Prompt Corner, a chess-players' cafe. Now it is a pizza house."
--Orwell's London, pg. 46.
This plaque, commemorating Orwell's time here, is just to the left of the door. It is not in the photograph in Orwell's London, so it must have been placed here after 1984.
