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George Orwell
Recommended Reading
Biographical Overview
George Orwell was a novelist, essayist and critic best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. He was a man of strong opinions who addressed some of the major political movements of his times, including imperialism, fascism and communism. Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, India, on June 25, 1903. The son of a British civil servant, Orwell spent his first days in India, where his father was stationed. His mother brought him and his older sister, Marjorie, to England about a year after his birth and settled in Henley-on-Thames. His father stayed behind in India and rarely visited. (His younger sister, Avril, was born in 1908. Orwell didn't really know his father until he retired from the service in 1912. And even after that, the pair never formed a strong bond. He found his father to be dull and conservative. According to one biography, Orwell's first word was "beastly." He was a sick child, often battling bronchitis and the flu. Orwell took up writing at an early age, reportedly composing his first poem around age four. He later wrote, "I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued." One of his first literary successes came at the age of 11 when he had a poem published in the local newspaper. Like many other boys in England, Orwell was sent to boarding school. In 1911, he went to St. Cyprian's in the coastal town of Eastbourne, where he got his first taste of England's class system. On a partial scholarship, Orwell noticed that the school treated the richer students better than the poorer ones. He wasn't popular with his peers, and in books, he found comfort from his difficult situation. He read works by Rudyard Kipling and H.G. Wells, among others. Orwell won scholarships to two of England’s leading schools, Wellington and Eton, and briefly attended the former before continuing his studies at the latter, where he stayed from 1917 to 1921. Aldous Huxley was one of his masters, and it was at Eton that he published his first writing in college periodicals. Instead of matriculating at a university, Orwell decided to follow family tradition and, in 1922, went to Burma as assistant district superintendent in the Indian Imperial Police. He served in a number of country stations and at first appeared to be a model imperial servant. Yet from boyhood he had wanted to become a writer, and when he realized how much against their will the Burmese were ruled by the British, he felt increasingly ashamed of his role as a colonial police officer. Later he was to recount his experiences and his reactions to imperial rule in his novel Burmese Days (1934) and in two brilliant autobiographical sketches, “Shooting an Elephant” (1936) and “A Hanging,” (1931) classics of expository prose. After leaving the India Imperial Force, Orwell struggled to get his writing career off the ground and took all sorts of jobs to make ends meet, including being a dishwasher. In December 1936, Orwell traveled to Spain, where he joined one of the groups fighting against General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell was badly injured during his time with a militia, getting shot in the throat and arm. For several weeks, he was unable to speak. Orwell and his wife, Eileen, were indicted on treason charges in Spain. Fortunately, the charges were brought after the couple had left the country. Other health problems plagued the talented writer not long after his return to England. For years, Orwell had periods of sickness, and he was officially diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1938. He spent several months at the Preston Hall Sanatorium trying to recover, but he would continue to battle with tuberculosis for the rest of his life. At the time he was initially diagnosed, there was no effective treatment for the disease. To support himself, Orwell took on various writing assignments. He wrote numerous essays and reviews over the years, developing a reputation for producing well-crafted literary criticism. In 1941, Orwell landed a job with the BBC as a producer. He developed news commentary and shows for audiences in the eastern part of the British Empire. Orwell drew such literary greats as T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster to appear on his programs. With World War II raging on, Orwell found himself acting as a propagandist to advance the country's national interest. He loathed this part of his job, describing the company's atmosphere in his diary as "something halfway between a girls’ school and a lunatic asylum, and all we are doing at present is useless, or slightly worse than useless.” Orwell resigned in 1943, saying “I was wasting my own time and the public money on doing work that produces no result. I believe that in the present political situation the broadcasting of British propaganda to India is an almost hopeless task.” Around this time, Orwell became the literary editor for a socialist newspaper. Sometimes called the conscience of a generation, Orwell is best known for two novels: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Both books, published toward the end of Orwell’s life, have been turned into films and enjoyed tremendous popularity over the years. Meanwhile, Orwell married Eileen O'Shaughnessy in June 1936, and Eileen supported and assisted Orwell in his career. The couple remained together until her death in 1945. According to several reports, they had an open marriage, and Orwell had a number of dalliances. In 1944 the couple adopted a son, whom they named Richard Horatio Blair, after one of Orwell's ancestors. Their son was largely raised by Orwell's sister Avril after Eileen's death. Near the end of his life, Orwell proposed to editor Sonia Brownell. He married her in October 1949, only a short time before his death. Brownell inherited Orwell's estate and made a career out of managing his legacy. Orwell died of tuberculosis in a London hospital on January 21, 1950. Although he was just 46 years old at the time of his death, his ideas and opinions have lived on through his work.
© https://www.biography.com/writer/george-orwell. Access Date: 26 April 2021
© https://www.biography.com/writer/george-orwell. Access Date: 26 April 2021
Biographical Overview
GEORGE ORWELL, the pen-name of Eric Arthur Blair, was born on 25 June 1903 in Motihari, Bengal, where his father, Richard Blair, was working as an Opium Agent in the Indian Civil Service, into what Orwell later described as ‘the lower-upper-middle classes’. His mother brought him and his older sister, Marjorie, to England about a year after his birth and settled in Henley-on-Thames. His father stayed behind in India and rarely visited. His younger sister, Avril, was born (afyet Ida had briefly visited with Richard) in 1908. Orwell didn't really know his father until he retired from the service in 1912. And even after that, the pair never formed a strong bond. He found his father to be dull and conservative. The Thames Valley locales in which the family settled provided the background to his novel Coming Up For Air (1939).Orwell was a studious child and attended St Cyprian’s preparatory school in Eastbourne, a legendary establishment. He won a King’s Scholarship to Eton College, arriving at the school in May 1917. Orwell left a caustic memoir of his time at St Cyprian’s (‘Such, Such Were The Joys’) but also remarked that ‘No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.’ At Eton he frankly slacked, leaving the school in December 1921 after only a term in the sixth form. The following June he passed the entrance examination of the Indian Imperial Police and was accepted into its Burma division.Orwell’s five-year stint in Burma is often seen as a mournful period of parentally-ordained exile. However, both sides of his family were professionally attached to the Eastern Empire, and his stated reason for applying for the Burma posting was that he had relatives there. Almost nothing is known of Orwell’s time in the province, other than that it offered the material for two of his best-known essays, ‘A Hanging’ and ‘Shooting an Elephant’ and his first novel Burmese Days (1934). It also ruined his health. Although disillusioned by the Imperial ‘racket’ he had helped to administer, he left Burma in June 1927 on a medical certificate, and then decided to resign from the Burma Police shortly after.For the next five years he led a vagrant life. Some of this time was spent at his parents’ home in Southwold, Suffolk. There were periods teaching in private schools, living in Paris, and masquerading as a tramp, the background to his first published work, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). His professional alias, which combined the name of the reigning monarch with a local river, was adopted shortly before publication as a means to spare his family any embarrassment. His teaching career was brought to a close by a bout of pneumonia and at the end of 1934, having used a long, recuperative stay in Southwold to complete a second novel, A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935), he decamped to London to work in a Hampstead bookshop. This was a productive period. Here he met and married his first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, and wrote a third novel, partly based on his book-trade experiences, Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936).The Orwells began their married life in a tiny cottage in Wallington, Hertfordshire, where Orwell worked up the material gathered on a recent tour of the industrial north into The Road to Wigan Pier (1937). The defining political experience of his life was the six months he spent in Spain, in 1937, as a Republican volunteer against Franco. He was wounded in the throat – the bullet passing within a few millimeters of his carotid artery – and was present in Barcelona when Soviet-sponsored hit-squads attempted to suppress the militia, of which he had been a member. Spain made Orwell ‘believe in Socialism for the first time’, as he put it, while instilling an enduring hatred of totalitarian political systems.Homage to Catalonia, an account of his time in Spain, was published in April 1938. He spent most of the next year recuperating, both in England and Morocco, from a life-threatening lung hemorrhage. At this stage Orwell was determined to oppose the looming international conflict, only changing his mind on the announcement of the Russo-German pact in August 1939. Initially Orwell had high hopes of the war, which he believed would instill a sense of Socialist purpose: this view was developed in the pamphlet essay The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius (1941). Rejected for military service on health grounds, he became a producer in the BBC’s Eastern Service, a job he came to dislike. The BBC’s atmosphere, he complained, ‘is something between a girls’ school and a lunatic asylum, and all we are doing at present is useless, or slightly worse than useless’. In 1943 he secured a more congenial billet as literary editor of the left-wing weekly magazine Tribune, to which he also contributed a column under the heading ‘As I Please’.Animal Farm, his bitter satire of the Soviet experiment, was written by the middle of 1944. Publishers’ timidity, and the covert pressure exerted by a Russian spy working for the Ministry of Information, delayed its appearance until August 1945. By this time Orwell’s personal life was in ruins. Five months previously Eileen had died of heart failure during a routine operation. The couple had previously adopted a small boy, Richard Horatio Blair, whom Orwell, with the help of his sister Avril, determined to raise on his own.Through his friend David Astor, he had already begun to explore the possibility of living on the remote Scottish island of Jura. Much of the last half-decade of his life was spent in the Inner Hebrides struggling against worsening health to complete his final novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. After finishing a final draft at the end of 1948, he suffered a complete physical collapse and was taken away to a nursing home in the Cotswolds suffering from advanced tuberculosis. The novel’s enormous international success, on publication in June 1949, came too late for its author. He was transferred to University College Hospital in September and died there on 21 January 1950, aged 46. Shortly before his death he made an unexpected second marriage to Sonia Brownell, an editorial assistant on the literary magazine Horizon. Sitting down to read his obituaries on the day of his funeral, his friend Malcolm Muggeridge thought that he saw in them ‘how the legend of a human being is created’.
© https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/biography/Retrieved 16 July, 2021
© https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/biography/Retrieved 16 July, 2021
Important Works
'Down and Out in Paris and London' (1933): Orwell’s first major work explored his time eking out a living in these two cities. The book provided a brutal look at the lives of the working poor and of those living a transient existence. Not wishing to embarrass his family, the author published the book under the pseudonym George Orwell.
'Burmese Days' (1934): Orwell next explored his overseas experiences in Burmese Days, which offered a dark look at British colonialism in Burma, then part of the country's Indian empire. Orwell's interest in political matters grew rapidly after this novel was published.
‘Shooting an Elephant’: This essay, published in the literary magazine New Writing in 1936, discusses Orwell’s time as a police officer in Burma (now known as Myanmar), which was still a British colony at the time. Orwell hated his job and thought imperialism was “an evil thing;” as a representative of imperialism, he was disliked by locals. One day, although he didn’t think it necessary, he killed a working elephant in front of a crowd of locals just “to avoid looking a fool.” The essay was later the title piece in a collection of Orwell’s essays, published in 1950, which included ‘My Country Right or Left,’ ‘How the Poor Die’ and ‘Such, Such were the Joys.’
‘Animal Farm’ (1945): Animal Farm was an anti-Soviet satire in a pastoral setting featuring two pigs as its main protagonists. These pigs were said to represent Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. The novel brought Orwell great acclaim and financial rewards.
‘Politics and the English Language’: Published in April 1946 in the British literary magazine Horizon, this essay is considered one of Orwell’s most important works on style. Orwell believed that "ugly and inaccurate" English enabled oppressive ideology and that vague or meaningless language was meant to hide the truth. He argued that language should not naturally evolve over time but should be “an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.” To write well is to be able to think clearly and engage in political discourse, he wrote, as he rallied against cliches, dying metaphors and pretentious or meaningless language.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949): Orwell’s masterwork, Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984 in later editions), was published in the late stages of his battle with tuberculosis and soon before his death. This bleak vision of the world divided into three oppressive nations stirred up controversy among reviewers, who found this fictional future too despairing. In the novel, Orwell gave readers a glimpse into what would happen if the government controlled every detail of a person's life, down to their own private thoughts.
'Burmese Days' (1934): Orwell next explored his overseas experiences in Burmese Days, which offered a dark look at British colonialism in Burma, then part of the country's Indian empire. Orwell's interest in political matters grew rapidly after this novel was published.
‘Shooting an Elephant’: This essay, published in the literary magazine New Writing in 1936, discusses Orwell’s time as a police officer in Burma (now known as Myanmar), which was still a British colony at the time. Orwell hated his job and thought imperialism was “an evil thing;” as a representative of imperialism, he was disliked by locals. One day, although he didn’t think it necessary, he killed a working elephant in front of a crowd of locals just “to avoid looking a fool.” The essay was later the title piece in a collection of Orwell’s essays, published in 1950, which included ‘My Country Right or Left,’ ‘How the Poor Die’ and ‘Such, Such were the Joys.’
‘Animal Farm’ (1945): Animal Farm was an anti-Soviet satire in a pastoral setting featuring two pigs as its main protagonists. These pigs were said to represent Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. The novel brought Orwell great acclaim and financial rewards.
‘Politics and the English Language’: Published in April 1946 in the British literary magazine Horizon, this essay is considered one of Orwell’s most important works on style. Orwell believed that "ugly and inaccurate" English enabled oppressive ideology and that vague or meaningless language was meant to hide the truth. He argued that language should not naturally evolve over time but should be “an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.” To write well is to be able to think clearly and engage in political discourse, he wrote, as he rallied against cliches, dying metaphors and pretentious or meaningless language.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949): Orwell’s masterwork, Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984 in later editions), was published in the late stages of his battle with tuberculosis and soon before his death. This bleak vision of the world divided into three oppressive nations stirred up controversy among reviewers, who found this fictional future too despairing. In the novel, Orwell gave readers a glimpse into what would happen if the government controlled every detail of a person's life, down to their own private thoughts.
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Eric with his adopted son Richard
Marjorie, Avril, Eric circa 1910
Time Line Highlights
- 1903 Eric Arthur Blair born at Motihari, Bengal, India, June 25th, son of Richard Walmesley Blair and Ida Mabel Blair (née Limouzin)
- 1904 Brought to England by his mother. Family settles in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire
- 1908-1911 Educated at Sunnylands, an Anglican school, Eastbourne, Sussex
- 1911-1916 Boarder at St. Cyprian's preparatory school, Eastbourne, Sussex
- 1912 Richard Blair, retired from India Civil Service, returns to England. Family moved to Shiplake near Henley
- 1914 First work published: Awake Young Men of England (poem)
- 1915 Blair family moves back to Henley
- 1917 Spends Lent term at Wellington College
- 1917-1921 King's Scholar, Eton College
- 1921 Parents move to Southwold, Suffolk (December)
- 1922 Blair attends cramming establishment in Southwold (January-June), to prepare for India Office examinations
- 1922-1927 Assistant Superintendent of Police, Indian Imperial Police, Burma
- 1928-1929 Lives in Paris, writing and later working as a dishwasher. Hospitalized with Pneumonia (February)
- 1930-1931 Goes tramping in London and Home Counties. Writes early version of Down and Out in Paris and London. Contributes essays to Adelphi (The Spike and The Hanging) under his own name
- 1932-1933 Teaches at the Hawthorns, a small private school in Hayes, Middlesex
- 1933 First book, Down and Out in Paris and London published by Victor Gollancz. Uses pseudonym “George Orwell” for the first time. Teaches at Frays College, Middlesex. Hospitalized with pneumonia
- 1934 Gives up teaching. Spends ten months in Southwold. Burmese Days published in United States (October). Moves to Hampstead, London (November)
- 1934-1935 Works as part-time assistant in Booklover's Corner, Hampstead. A Clergyman's Daughter published (March 1935). Burmese Days published in England (June 1935). Meets Eileen O'Shaughnessy, age 30
- 1936 In industrial Lancashire and Yorkshire, investigating working class life and unemployment at suggestion of Victor Gollancz (January-March). Moves to Wallington, Herts. (April). Keep the Aspidistra Flying published (June). Marries Eileen O'Shaughnessy. Attends I.L.P.[g] Summer School, Letchworth, Herts. (July). Leaves for Spain (December) 1937 In Spain (January-June). Corporal with Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista detachment of the Aragon front. Involved in street fighting in Barcelona between government and anarchist troops. Wounded in throat by sniper. Honorable discharge for medical reasons from P.O.U.M.[g] militia. Evades arrest during anti-P.O.U.M. purge in Barcelona. The Road to Wigan Pier published (March)). Left Book Club edition of 40,000 copies
- 1938 In tuberculosis sanitorium, Kent. Homage to Catalonia published (April). Joins ILP (June). Goes to Morocco for his health (September)
- 1939 Returns to England (March). Coming Up for Air published (June). Death of father
- 1940 Inside the Whale published (March). Moves to London (May). Writes reviews for Time and Tide and Tribune. Joins Local Defense Volunteers (Home Guards)
- 1941 The Lion and the Unicorn published (February)
- 1941-1943 Talks Producer, Empire Department, B.B.C.[g], in charge of broadcasting to India and Southeast Asia. Death of mother
- 1943-1946 Literary Editor of Tribune
- 1944 Orwell and Eileen adopt a one-month old child, whom they name, Richard Horatio Blair (photo)
- 1945 War correspondent for The Observer in Paris and Cologne (March-May). Death of Eileen while under anesthetic for operation (March 29). Covers first post-war election campaign (June-July). Animal Farm published (August)
- 1946 Critical Essays published (February). Moves to Barnhill, Isle of Jura (May)
- 1947 Enters Hairmyres Hospital, near Glasgow, with tuberculosis of the left lung (Christmas Eve)
- 1948 Returns from hospital to Jura (July). Completes revision of Nineteen Eighty-Four by December
- 1949 Enters Cotswolds Sanitorium, Cranham, Gloucestershire (January). Nineteen Eighty-Four published (June). Over 400,000 copies sold in first year. Transferred from Cranham to University College Hospital, London (September). Marries Sonia Bronwell, an editorial assistant with Horizon, in hospital (October)
- 1950 Dies suddenly in University College Hospital, of a hemorrhaged lung (January 21). Buried in the chruchyard of All Saints, Sutton Courtney, Berkshire
George Orwell and Antisemitism
Orwell did have a slightly thuggish side to him on occasion, making unkind remarks about ‘nancy’ homosexuals and (when he was younger) Jews. But he always strove to overcome these scars of his upbringing.Christopher Hitchens
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Web Resources
Print:BIOGRAPHY: https://www.biography.com/writer/george-orwellBIOGRAPHY (Britannica; subscription): https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-OrwellBIOGRAPHY: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_OrwellCOMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell_bibliographyDOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_LondonDOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON: https://www.thoughtco.com/down-out-paris-london-study-guide-4169589BURMESE DAYS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_DaysBURMESE DAYS: https://www.thehindu.com/books/burmese-days-by-george-orwell/article31859079.eceA CLERGYMAN’S DAUGHTER: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clergyman%27s_DaughterKEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Aspidistra_FlyingTHE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Wigan_PierTHE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/20/orwell-wigan-pier-75-yearsHOMAGE TO CATALONIA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_CataloniaHOMAGE TO CATALONIA: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/06/george-orwell-homage-to-catalonia-account-spanish-civil-war-wrongCOMING UP FOR AIR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Up_for_AirANIMAL FARM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_FarmANIMAL FARM: https://www.thoughtco.com/animal-farm-themes-symbols-45878671984: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180507-why-orwells-1984-could-be-about-now1984: https://theconversation.com/what-orwells-1984-tells-us-about-todays-world-70-years-after-it-was-published-1169401984: https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/nineteen-eighty-four-and-the-politics-of-dystopia
Video: OVERVIEW OF ORWELL (14 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvXU3vzHq8EOVERVIEW OF ORWELL’S LIFE (25 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfabA0KdniYOVERVIEW OF 1984 (8 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9JIKngJnCUOVERVIEW OF 1984 (5 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvuzu8vtY8OVERVIEW OF 1984 (with novelist John Green; 15 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9ipRaLa4JwOVERVIEW OF ANIMAL FARM (5 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe-tR_jf7vEOVERVIEW AND SUMMARY OF ANIMAL FARM (11 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFP1IMyKyy4
Video: OVERVIEW OF ORWELL (14 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvXU3vzHq8EOVERVIEW OF ORWELL’S LIFE (25 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfabA0KdniYOVERVIEW OF 1984 (8 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9JIKngJnCUOVERVIEW OF 1984 (5 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvuzu8vtY8OVERVIEW OF 1984 (with novelist John Green; 15 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9ipRaLa4JwOVERVIEW OF ANIMAL FARM (5 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe-tR_jf7vEOVERVIEW AND SUMMARY OF ANIMAL FARM (11 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFP1IMyKyy4
