George Orwell

At 46 years old, George Orwell has this physical status:

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and essayist, writer, and critic.

Orwell's writing is characterized by lucid prose, acuteness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support for political socialism.

His non-fiction books, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), chronicling his time in the northern lands, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his wartime in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), are as influential as his essays on politics and literature, language, and culture.

The Times named George Orwell second among "The 50 Greatest British writers since 1945," as well as "Big Brother," "Thought Police," and "Hate Week," "Protest," "Megawahr" and "Newspeak," "program," and "Thought Police."

Life

Eric Arthur Blair was born in Motihari, Bengal, British India, on June 25th, 1903, into what he described as a "lower-middle class" family. Charles Blair, his great-grandfather and absentee owner of Jamaican plantations from Dorset who married Lady Mary Fane, daughter of the 8th Earl of Westmorland, was a wealthy country gentleman and absentee owner of the lands. Thomas Richard Arthur Blair, an Anglican clergyman, and Orwell's father, Richard Walmesley Blair, was a Sub-Deputy Opium Agent in the Indian Civil Service's Opium Department, in charge of the production and storage of opium for sale to China. Ida Mabel Blair (née Limouzin) grew up in Moulmein, Burma, where her French father was active in speculative ventures. Eric had two sisters: Marjorie, five years old, and Avril, five years younger. When Eric was one year old, his mother took him and Marjorie to England. Orwell's birthplace and ancestral home in Motihari started in 2014, and restoration work was started in 2014.

Ida Blair and her children died in 1904 at Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Eric was brought up in the company of his mother and siblings, but he didn't see his father again until 1912. Eric, a 5-year-old boy, was sent as a day-boy to a convent school in Henley-on-Thames, which Marjorie also attended. It was a Roman Catholic convent run by French Ursuline nuns. His mother wanted him to attend a public school education but his family could not afford the fees. Blair obtained a scholarship to St Cyprian's School in Eastbourne, East Sussex, thanks to Ida Blair's brother, Charles Limouzin. He arrived in September 1911 and stayed at the school for the next five years, returning home only for school holidays. Despite knowing nothing of the reduced rates, he "soon knew" he was from a poorer household." Blair resentment with the institution and wrote a book "Such, Such Joy," which was later published posthumously based on his time there. Blair first met Cyril Connolly, who later became a writer and who, as the editor of Horizon, published several of Orwell's essays, at St Cyprian's.

The family moved 2 miles (3 km) south to Shiplake, Oxfordshire, where Eric became friendly with the Buddicom family, particularly their daughter Jacintha. He was standing on his head in a field when they first met. "You will be noticed more if you stand on your head than if you are right way up," he explained when asked why. Jacintha and Eric read and wrote poetry, and they hoped to become well-known writers. He said he might write a book in the style of H. G. Wells's A Modern Utopia. During this time, he also enjoyed shooting, fishing, and birdwatching with Jacintha's brother and sister.

Blair wrote two poems at St Cyprian's which were later published in the Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard. He came second second in the Harrow History Prize, had his work praised by the school's external examiner, and received scholarships to Wellington and Eton. However, being accepted on the Eton scholarship program did not guarantee a seat, and no one was immediately available for Blair. In case a place at Eton becomes available, he stayed at St Cyprian's until December 1916.

Blair took up Wellington, where he had lived in January. In May 1917, a place as a King's Scholar at Eton was open. The family lived in Notting Hill Gate, notting Hill Gate, at this time. Blair stayed at Eton until 1921, when he left midway between his 18th and 19th birthdays. Blair said he was "beastly" at Eton, but he said he was "inquiring and happy" at the university. A. S. F. Gow, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who gave him guidance later in his career, was his principal tutor. Aldous Huxley taught Blair French for a short time. Steven Runciman, a writer who was at Eton with Blair, said that he and his contemporaries admired Huxley's linguistic expertise. Cyril Connolly followed Blair to Eton, but the two did not know each other at that time.

Blair's academic accomplishments indicate that he skipped his studies, but that he collaborated with Roger Mynors to produce a college magazine, The Election Times, was involved in other publications—College Days and Bubble and Squeak—and appeared in the Eton Wall Game. His parents could not afford to send him to a university without another scholarship, and his parents realized from his poor results that he would not be able to win one. Runciman expressed a romantic interest in the East, and the family decided that Blair should join the Imperial Police, the predecessor to the Indian Police Service. He had to pass an entrance examination to do so. He left Eton in December 1921 and traveled to visit his elderly father, mother, and younger sister Avril, who died in August 1921, with the first of their four homes in the town. Blair was enrolled in Craighurst, Alabama, and did a little bit of Classics, English, and History. He passed the entrance exam, finishing seventh out of the 26 candidates who met the passing mark.

Blair's maternal grandmother lived in Moulmein, so he picked a Burma posting before then a province of British India. He sailed on board SS Herefordshire via the Suez Canal and Ceylon in October 1922 to join the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. He arrived in Rangoon and travelled to Mandalay's police academy a month later. He was appointed an Assistant District Superintendent (on probation) on November 29, 1922, and his salary will be payable from November 27th. The average monthly income is 525 per month. After a short appearance at Maymyo, Burma's first hill station, he was sent to Myaungmya, the frontier outpost of the Irrawaddy Delta at the start of 1924.

Although the majority of his contemporaries were still attending university in England, working as an imperial police officer gave him a lot of responsibility. When he was sent further east in the Delta to Twante as a sub-divisional officer, he was responsible for the protection of some 200,000 residents. He was sent to Syriam, closer to Rangoon, at the end of 1924. "The Burmah Oil Company's refinery was the source of a barren waste," the surrounding area was stricken by the sulphur dioxide vapors that escaped day and night from the stacks of the refinery. Blair, a cosmopolitan seaport, stayed in the city as often as he could, "to browse in a bookshop; to eat well-cooked food; to get away from the boring routine of police life." In September 1925, he went to Insein, the home of Insein Prison, Burma's second largest prison. Elisa Maria Langford-Rae (who later married Kazi Lhendup Dorjee) had "long talks on every conceivable topic" in Insein. "There's a sense of complete fairness in minutest details," she said. Blair had completed his education and was earning a monthly income of Rs. The 740 includes allowances.

Blair established a reputation in Burma as a stranger. He spent a considerable amount of his time alone, reading or pursuing non-pukka interests, such as attending the Karen ethnic group's churches. In a 1969 recording for the BBC, Roger Beadon said Blair was quick to learn the language and that before he left Burma, he was able to converse fluently with Burmese priests in'very high-flown Burmese." Blair made some changes to his Burma appearance that remained for the remainder of his life, including the use of a pencil moustache. "While in Burma, he developed a moustache similar to those worn by British regiments stationed there," Emma Larkin writes in a welcome to Burmese Days. He also got tattoos; on each knuckle, he had a small untidy blue circle. Many Burmese people live in rural areas have tattoos like this; they are supposed to be shielded from bullets and snake bites.

He moved to Moulmein, where his maternal grandmother lived in April 1926. He was sent to Katha in Upper Burma, where he had first seen dengue fever in 1927. He was allowed to return in July due to his illness after being entitled to a leave in England this year. He praised his life while on leave in England and on holiday in Cornwall with his family in September 1927. After five-and-a-half years of service, he decided against returning to Burma. He resigned from the Indian Imperial Police to become a writer, with effect from 12 March 1928. For the novel Burmese Days (1934) and the essays "A Hanging" (1931) and "Shooting an Elephant," (1936), he drew on his experiences in the Burma police.

He returned to Southwold, reuniting with local friends and attending an Old Etonian dinner. Gow, his old tutor at Cambridge, was consulted by him for tips on becoming a writer. He immigrated to London in 1927. Ruth Pitter, a family friend, helped him find lodging, and by the end of 1927, he had moved into Portobello Road; a blue plaque commemorates his stay there. "Iron Blair's involvement in the change would have given it a reassuring respect in Mrs. Blair's eyes." Pitter expressed sympathy with Blair's writing, pointed out flaws in his poetry, and encouraged him to write about what he knew. In fact, he decided to write about "certain aspects of the present that he wanted to know" and ventured into the East End of London, the first of the occasional trips he'd take to discover for himself the world of poverty and the down-and-outers who live it. He had uncovered a mystery. These sorties, research, expeditions, tours, or immersions were made on a yearly basis over a five-year period.

Blair began to investigate London's poorer parts in imitation of Jack London, whose writing he adored (particularly The People of the Abyss). On his first outing, he set out to Limehouse Causeway, spending his first night in a shared lodging house, possibly George Levy's "kip." He "went native" in his own country, dressing like a tramp, adopting the term P.S. Burton is making no compromises to middle-class needs and hopes; he chronicled his experiences of the low life in "The Spike," his first published essay in English, and in the second half of his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933).

He immigrated to Paris in early 1928. He lived in the rue du Pot de Fer, a working class neighborhood in the 5th arrondissement. Nellie Limouzin, his uncle, was born in Paris and gave him social and, in some cases, financial assistance. He began to write books, including an early version of Burmese Days, but nothing else from that time exists. He was more successful as a journalist and published articles in Monde, a political/literary journal edited by Henri Barbusse; his first article as a journalist, "La Censure en Angleterre," appeared in the journal on October 6th; and Le Progrès Civique (founded by the left-wing coalition Le Cartel des Gauches). In Le Progrès Civique's weeks, three pieces were exhibited: one day in the life of a tramp, the beggars of London, respectively. "Poverty was to become his obsession in one or two ways," the author states, "at the root of almost every sentence he wrote until Homage to Catalonia."

He was seriously ill in February 1929 and was admitted to Hôpital Cochin in the 14th arrondissement, a free hospital where medical students were trained. His experiences there inspired his book "How the Poor Die" which was published in 1946. He preferred not to identify the hospital, but it was actually inaccurate in terms of its location. He had all his money stolen from his lodging house just a few weeks later. He undertook menial services such as dishwashing in a chic hotel on the rue de Rivoli, which he later described in Down and Out in Paris and London, whether out of necessity or to gather information. He gave John Middleton Murry's New Adelphi newspaper in London a copy of "The Spike" in August 1929. Max Plowman and Sir Richard Rees edited the magazine, and Plowman accepted it for publication.

Blair returned to England and immediately to his parents' home in Southwold, Suffolk's coastal town, where he remained base for the next five years, after nearly two years in Paris. The family was well-established in the area, and his sister Avril was running a tea house there. He became acquainted with several local people, including Brenda Salkeld, the clergyman's daughter who worked as a gym-teacher at St Felix Girls' School in the town. Although Salkeld turned down his marriage bid, she remained a friend and regular reporter for many years. He also reconnected with old acquaintances, such as Dennis Collings, whose mother Eleanor Jacques was also interested in his life.

He and his sister Marjorie and her husband Humphrey Dakin, who were as unappreciative of Blair as infants, stayed in Bramley, Leeds, in early 1930. Blair was writing reviews for Adelphi and being a private tutor to a disabled child at Southwold. He then became a mentor to three teenage brothers, one of whom, Richard Peters, later became a respected scholar. "History in the era of dualities and comparisons has shaped the transition." Blair is living a happy, outwardly eventless life at his parents' house in Southwold, writing; then, there is Blair as Burton (the name he used in his down-and-out episodes) in the East End, on the road, and in Kent's hop fields; He went painting and bathing on the beach, and Mabel and Francis Fierz, who later inspired his work, were among his acquaintances. Throughout the next year, he visited them in London, often meeting their friend Max Plowman. He also stayed at Ruth Pitter and Richard Rees' homes, where he could "change" for his sporadic tramping trips. One of his jobs was domestic work at a lodging for half a crown (two shillings and sixpence, or one-eighth of a pound) per day.

Blair began contributing regularly to Adelphi, with "A Hanging" appearing in August 1931. His poverty journey continued from August to September 1931, and he followed the East End's tradition of working in the Kent hop fields. He kept a journal of his travels. He pleaded in the Tooley Street kip but didn't stick it out for long, and with financial assistance from his parents, he migrated to Windsor Street, where he stayed until Christmas. Eric Blair's book "Hop Picking" appeared in the October 1931 issue of New Statesman, whose editorial staff included his old friend Cyril Connolly. Mabel Fierz put him in touch with Leonard Moore, who became his literary agent in April 1932.

Jonathan Cape, the first version of Down and Out, has been rejected by A Scullion's Diary. On Richard Rees' advice, he sold it to Faber and Faber, but T. S. Eliot, the department's editorial director, had it refuse. Blair ended the year by intentionally getting himself arrested so he could experience Christmas in jail, but the police in Bethnal Green's East End of London did not find his "drunk and disorderly" behaviour imprisonable, and after two days in a prison he returned home to Southwold.

In April 1932, Blair became a tutor at The Hawthorns High School, a boys' academy, in Hayes, West London. This was a small school selling private schooling to children of local tradesmen and shopkeepers, but there were only 14 or 16 boys aged between ten and sixteen years old, with one other master. While attending the school, he became acquainted with the curate of the local parish church and became involved in parish activities. Mabel Fierz had investigated Moore's, but Moore told Blair that Victor Gollancz was able to publish A Scullion's Diary for a £40 advance through his newly founded publishing house, Victor Gollancz Ltd, which was a hub for radical and socialist works.

Blair returned to Southwold, where his parents had used a legacy to buy their own home at the end of the summer term in 1932. While Blair and his sister Avril were off working on Burmese Days, they spent the holidays making the house livable. He was also spending time with Eleanor Jacques, but Dennis Collings' attachment to Dennis Collings remained a barrier to his attempts to have a more serious relationship.

In the August 1932 number of Adelphi, "clink," an essay describing his failed attempt to get sent to jail, appeared in "Click." He returned to teach at Hayes and was eager for the debut of his book, now known as Down and Out in Paris and London. He wanted to publish under a different name in order to prevent any embarrassment to his family over his time as a "tramp." He left the option of pseudonym to Moore and then to Gollancz in a letter sent to Moore on November 15, 1932. He wrote to Moore four days later, recommending the pseudonyms P. S. Burton (a term he used when tramping), Kenneth Miles, George Orwell, and H. Lewis Allways. "It is a good round English name," George Orwell finally adopted the pen name George Orwell. After the River Orwell in Suffolk, one of Orwell's favorite locations, George was inspired by the patron saint of England and Orwell.

Victor Gollancz's Down and Out in London on January 9, 1933, garnered raves, with Cecil Day-Lewis lauding Orwell's "clarity and good sense" and The Times Literary Supplement comparing Orwell's eccentric characters to Dickens' characters. Down and Out was marginally well-received and Harper & Brothers in New York was the next to publish Down and Out.

Blair left Hawthorns to work as a tutor at Frays College in Uxbridge, west London, in mid-1933. This was a much larger school with 200 students and a full complement of staff. He bought a motorcycle and rode around the countryside. He became soaked and developed a chill that developed into pneumonia on one of these trips. He was admitted to a cottage hospital in Uxbridge, where his life was considered to be in risk for a time. He returned to Southwold in 1934 to convalesce and, although aided by his parents, never returned to teaching.

He was dissatisfied when Gollancz turned down Burmese Days, mainly due to potential lawsuits for libel, but Harper was eager to publish it in the United States. Blair, on the other hand, started work on A Clergyman's Daughter, reflecting on his experiences as a teacher and life in Southwold. Eleanor Jacques was now married and had moved to Singapore, while Brenda Salkeld had left Ireland, so Blair was somewhat isolated in Southwold: walking alone and spending time with his father. He left for London in October after sending A Clergyman's Daughter to Moore, but his aunt Nellie Limouzin had a baby there.

I worked in Booklovers' Corner, a second-hand bookshop in Hampstead operated by Francis and Myfanwy Westrope, who were allies of Nellie Limouzin in the Esquimal movement. At Warwick Mansions, Pond Street, the Westropes were friendly and provided him with excellent accommodation. Jon Kimche, a Westropes vet, was dividing his time with Kimche. Blair worked at the store in the afternoons and had his mornings free to write and evenings free to socialize, and evenings were free to socialize. These experiences inspired the book Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936). Richard Rees, as well as many other Westropes visitors, and Mabel Fierz enjoyed the company of his colleagues, as well as the Adelphi writers and Mabel Fierz. The Westropes and Kimche were members of the Independent Labour Party, but Blair was not particularly involved in politics at the time. He was writing for the Adelphi and preparing A Clergyman's Daughter and Burmese Days for publication.

He had to move out of Warwick Mansions in 1935, and Mabel Fierz discovered him in Parliament Hill at the start of 1935. On March 11, 1935, A Clergyman's Daughter was published. Early 1935 Blair met his future wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy when his landlady, Rosalind Obermeyer, who was studying for a master's degree in psychology at University College London, welcomed some of her classmates to a party. Elizaveta Fen, a historian and future translator of Chekhov, remembered Blair and his companion Richard Rees "draped" at the fireplace, with the latter appearing to be "moth-eaten and prematurely aged." Blair had started to write articles for The New English Weekly around this time.

Burmese Days were published in June, and Cyril Connolly's insightful report in the New Statesman inspired Blair to re-establish contact with his old buddy. He and Maryner Heppenstall shared a flat on 50 Lawford Road, Kentish Town, in August, which he shared with Michael Sayers and Rayner Heppenstall. Blair and Heppenstall's friendship became strained, and they later worked together on BBC television shows, but it was often uncomfortable. Blair was currently working on Keep the Aspidistra Flying and also attempted to write a serial for the News Chronicle. By October 1935, his flatmates had moved out and he was unable to pay the rent on his own. He continued at Booklovers' Corner until the end of January 1936, when he ceased working at Booklovers' Corner. Orwell's Kentish Town residence was honoured with a blue plaque in 1980.

Victor Gollancz suggested Orwell spend a brief time investigating socioeconomic conditions in economically depressed Northern England. J. Connor was two years ago, J. B. Priestley had written about England north of the Trent, sparking a lot of curiosity in reporting. The Depression had also brought a number of working-class writers from the North of England to the reading public. It was one of these working-class writers, Jack Hilton, who Orwell sought for assistance. Orwell had written to Hilton, requesting accommodation and asking for directions on his route. Hilton was unable to offer him accommodation, but suggested he travel to Wigan rather than Rochdale, "because there are the colliers and they're good stuff."

Orwell set out by public transport and on foot on 31 January 1936, a day or so old, and he made it to Manchester by Coventry, Stafford, the Potteries, and Macclesfield. He had to remain in a common lodging-house after arriving in Manchester after the banks had closed. Richard Rees' contact list was compiled the next day. Orwell spent February in disgust in shabby hotels over a tripe store, according to one of these, Frank Meade, a trade union official, who suggested Wigan. At Wigan, he went to many homes to see how people lived, took detailed notes of housing conditions and wages earned, and then went down Bryn Hall coal mine to consult public health data and mine conditions.

He was distracted by questions regarding appearance and potential libel in Keep the Aspidistra Flying at this moment. He stayed in south Yorkshire during March and Barnsley, spending time in Sheffield and Barnsley during his short stay. He attended meetings of the Communist Party and of Oswald Mosley ("the blame for all was placed on unethical international gangs of Jews"), where Mosley found the Blackshirts' tactics ("one is likely to face both a hammering and a fine for asking a question that Mosley finds it difficult to answer." He also spent time with his sister in Headingley, where he was "particularly impressed" by a pair of Charlotte Bront's cloth-topped boots, with square toes and lacing up at the sides.

Orwell needed somewhere to write his book, and Aunt Nellie, who lived in Wallington, Hertfordshire, was assisting him with the "Stores" in a tiny 16th-century cottage. Wallington was a small village 35 miles north of London, with almost no modern services available. On April 2, 1936, Orwell took over the tenancy and moved in. He began working on The Road to Wigan Pier by the end of April, but later spent hours on the garden, planting a rose garden, which is still on display, and discovering that "outside of my work, the thing I care most about is gardening, particularly vegetable gardening." He also tried to reopen the Stores as a village store. Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Gollancz first published it on April 20, 1936. Orwell spoke at Langham's Adelphi Summer School on August 4th, entitled An Outsider Sees the Distressed Areas; others who attended included John Strachey, Max Plowman, Karl Polanyi, and Reinhold Niebuhr.

The result of his travels through the north was The Road to Wigan Pier, published by Gollancz for the Left Book Club in 1937. The book's first half includes an evocative account of life in the coal mines, as well as an evocative summary of working life in the coal mines. The second half is a long essay about his upbringing and the growth of his political conviction, which includes an argument for socialism (although he goes to great lengths to balance the movement's own advocates' concerns and needs with the barriers it faced at the time, such as "priggish" and "dull" socialist intellectuals and "protestarian" socialists with no grasp of the actual ideology. While Orwell was in Spain, Gollancz was afraid that the second half would offend readers and added a disculpatory preface to the book.

Orwell's investigation into The Road to Wigan Pier led to him being under surveillance by the Special Branch from 1936, for 12 years, until about a year before the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Orwell married Eileen O'Shaughnessy on June 9, 1936. Shortly after, the Spanish political crisis began, and Orwell followed developments closely. Orwell, who was worried about Francisco Franco's military revolt (which was backed by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and local organizations such as Falange), decided to travel to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side at the end of the year. Despite the erroneous belief that he wanted papers from some right-wing group to cross the frontier, John Strachey applied unsuccessfully to Harry Pollitt, the British Communist Party's leader. Pollitt was skeptical of Orwell's political legitimacy; he asked him whether he'd join the International Brigade and told him to obtain a safe-conduct from the Spanish Embassy in Paris. Orwell, who did not want to commit himself until he had witnessed the crisis in Barcelona, received a letter of introduction from John McNair.

Orwell went to Spain on December 23, 1936, dining with Henry Miller in Paris on the way. Miller told Orwell that going into the Civil War out of any sense of obligation or guilt, as well as the Englishman's theories "about combating Fascism, defending democracy, etc., etc., were all baloney." Orwell's father, John McNair of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) Office, in Barcelona, quoted him as "I've come to fight against Fascism," he said, but "I should have replied 'Common decency'." Orwell stepped into a turbulent political situation in Catalonia. A number of groups with conflicting goals, including the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM – Partido Obrero Marxista), the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (CNT), which was backed by Soviet arms and assistance, helped by the Spanish Communist Party's armed forces and assistance, supported the Republican government. Orwell was among political parties and labour unions "with their tiresome names." The ILP was tied to the POUM, so Orwell joined the POUM.

He was sent to Barcelona's relatively quiet Aragon Front under Georges Kopp after a stint at Lenin Barracks. He was 1,500 feet (460 meters) above sea level in January 1937, just a few meters above sea level in the depths of winter. There were no military forces involved, and Orwell was stunned by the lack of munitions, food, and firewood as well as other extreme deprivations. Orwell was quickly made a corporal in his Cadet Corps and police training. Orwell and the other English militiaman, Williams, were sent to Monte Oscuro on the arrival of a British ILP Contingent about three weeks later. Bob Smillie, Bob Edwards, Stafford Cottman, and Jack Branthwaite were among the newly arrived ILP troops. The unit was then sent to Huesca.

Meanwhile, Eileen had been dealing with the introduction of The Road to Wigan Pier in England before heading out for Spain, leaving Nellie Limouzin to look after The Stores. Eileen volunteered for a post in John McNair's office and paid visits to her husband, offering him English tea, chocolate, and cigarettes. Orwell was forced to stay in hospital with a poisoned hand and had the majority of his possessions taken by the employees. He returned to the front and saw some action in a night assault on the Nationalist trenches, where he chased an enemy soldier with a bayonet and bombed an enemy rifle position.

Orwell returned to Barcelona in April. He wanted to be sent to the Madrid front, but he "must join the International Column," he told a Communist friend linked to the Spanish Medical Aid and detailed his case. "Once he did not know much about the Communists, Orwell was still able to treat them as friends and allies." That will soon change." This was the time of the Barcelona May Days, and Orwell was caught up in the factional warfare. During the stay, he spent much of his time on a roof with a stack of books, but Jon Kimche from Hampstead was absent during his stay. Orwell's resulting campaign of lies and distortion perpetrated by the Communist press, in which the POUM was accused of colluding with the fascists, had a dramatic effect on the Communist press. Rather than joining the International Brigades as he had intended, he returned to the Aragon Front. He was approached by a Communist friend who asked if he still wanted to join the International Brigades after the May war came to an end. Orwell expressed surprise that they should still want him because, according to the Communist press, he was a nationalist. "No one who was in Barcelona then or months later will forget the horrible atmosphere created by fear, mistrust, censored newspapers, crammed jails, long food lines, and prowling gangs of armed men."

He was shot in the chest by a sniper's bullet after returning to the front. Orwell was noticeably taller than the Spanish soldiers at 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m), and had been warned against standing in front of the trench. Orwell was taken on a stretcher to Siétamo, bleeding from his throat, and after a tumultuous ride across Barbastro, he arrived at the hospital in Lleida. He recovered well enough to get up and was sent to Tarragona and a POUM sanatorium in Barcelona's suburbs two days later. The bullet had broken his main artery by the barest of a mile, and his voice was barely audible. The wound was opened right away by a clean shot, and cauterization was initiated right away. He underwent electrotherapy therapy and was found medically unfit for service.

The political climate in Barcelona had worsened by the middle of June, and the POUM, which had been branded by the pro-Soviet Communists as a Trotskyist group, was outlawed and under attack. The POUM were "objectively" Fascist, according to the Communist Party, which was a barrier to the Republican Party. "A particularly bad poster emerged, showing a head with a POUM mask being pulled off to reveal a Swastika-covered face underneath." Members, including Kopp, were arrested, and others were in hiding, while others were in hiding. Orwell and his wife were under attack and they were forced to lie low, but they did go out of their way to assist Kopp.

They escaped from Spain by train, then heading to Banyuls-sur-Mer for a short stay before returning to England. Orwell returned to Wallington in the first week of July 1937, bringing the Orwells with "rabid Trotskyism" and being agents of the POUM. In Barcelona in October and November 1938, the trial of the POUM and Orwell leaders (in his absence) took place. Orwell wrote of events in French Morocco that they were "merely a by-product of the Russian Trotskyist trials," and that every sort of lie, including flagrant absurdities, has been published in the Communist press from the start. Orwell's experiences during the Spanish Civil War gave rise to Homage to Catalonia (1938).

Giles Tremlett's book The International Brigades: Fascism, Independence, and the Spanish Civil War reveals that Orwell and his wife Eileen were spied on in Barcelona in May 1937. "The papers are documentary evidence that not only Orwell, but also his wife Eileen were being closely monitored."

Orwell returned to England in June 1937 and spent the remainder of his stay at Greenwich's O'Shaughnessy home. He found his views on the Spanish Civil War out of favor. Kingsley Martin dismissed two of his creations, while Gollancz was more cautious. The communist Daily Worker was launching an attack on The Road to Wigan Pier, putting Orwell's words "the working classes stink" out of context; Orwell's letter to Gollancz threatening libel action brought a halt to this. Orwell was also able to locate a more sympathetic publisher for his views in Secker & Warburg's Fredric Warburg. Orwell returned to Wallington, where he discovered the town in disarray after his absence. He owned goats, a cockerel, and a poodle puppy, all named Marx; he later devoted to animal husbandry and writing Homage to Catalonia.

Although Orwell's health had improved by March 1938, there were plans to go to India to work on The Pioneer, a newspaper in Lucknow. He was admitted to Preston Hall Sanatorium in Aylesford, Kent, a British Legion hospital for injured servicemen to which his brother-in-law Laurence O'Shaughnessy was attached. He was thought to have been suffering from tuberculosis from the start and spent the remainder of the sanatorium until September. Common, Heppenstall, Plowman, and Cyril Connolly were among the visitors who paid a visit to see him. Connolly brought Stephen Spender with him, causing some embarrassment as Orwell had referred to Spender as a "pansy buddy" some time ago. Secker & Warburg published Homage to Catalonia, which was a commercial flop. Orwell was able to walk in the countryside and study nature in the latter part of his stay at the clinic.

L.H. Myers, a novelist, secretly funded a trip to Orwell to escape the English winter and restore his health. The Orwells set out in September 1938 through Gibraltar and Tangier to avoid Spanish Morocco and arrived in Marrakech. They rented a villa on the road to Casablanca, and Orwell wrote Come Up for Air at that time. They appeared in England on March 30, 1939, and in June, They were back on air. Orwell spent time in Wallington and Southwold on a Dickens essay, and it was in June 1939 that Orwell's father, Richard Blair, died.

Eileen Orwell's wife Eileen began working with the Ministry of Information in central London during the Second World War and spent the week with her family in Greenwich. Orwell also applied for war service, but nothing transpired. Orwell told Geoffrey Gorer, "They won't have me in the army at any rate at present because of my lungs." He returned to Wallington, and In late 1939 he wrote articles for his first collection of essays, Inside the Whale. He was busy writing reviews for plays, films, and books for The Listener, Time and Tide, and New Adelphi over the next year. His long association with Tribune began on March 29, 1940, with a study of a sergeant's account of Napoleon's departure from Moscow. The first edition of Connolly's Horizon appeared at the start of 1940, providing Orwell's work as well as new literary contacts. In May, the Orwells purchased a flat in London at Dorset Chambers, Chagford Street, Marylebone, securing the Orwells' lease. It was the year of the Dunkirk evacuation, and the death of Eileen's brother Lawrence in France caused her considerable anxiety and long-term depression. Orwell kept a wartime diary throughout this period.

In June, Orwell was classified "unfit for any kind of military service" by the Medical Board, but the Home Guard soon thereafter found a way to participate in war service by joining the Home Guard. Tom Wintringham portrayed the Home Guard's socialist vision as a protester in the People's Militia. His lecture notes for instructing platoon members include information about street fighting, field fortifications, and the use of mortars of various kinds. Sergeant Orwell was able to recruit Fredric Warburg to his unit. At Warburg's house in Twyford, Berkshire, he spent weekends with Warburg and his new Zionist acquaintance, Tosco Fyvel, during the Battle of Britain. He worked on "England Your England" and in London on various periodicals. In Greenwich, visiting Eileen's family brought him face-to-face with the effects of the Blitz on East London. Warburg, Fyvel, and Orwell planned Searchlight Books in mid-1940. Eleven volumes eventually appeared, one of which, Orwell's The Lion and the Unicorn, Socialism and the English Genius, 1941, was the first.

Orwell began to write for the American Partisan Review in 1941, putting Orwell with Orwell, a founder of the New York Intellectuals who were also anti-Stalinists, and his contribution to the Gollancz anthology The Betrayal of the Left is a book that was written in the light of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the Hitler-Stalin Pact. He also applied for a job at the Air Ministry, but was turned down. Meanwhile, he was still writing reviews of books and plays, and at this point, he had met novelist Anthony Powell. He appeared in a few radio broadcasts for the BBC's Eastern Service. The Orwells migrated to a seventh-floor apartment at Langford Court in St John's Wood in March, while Wallington Orwell was "digging for glory" by planting potatoes.

When Orwell's Eastern Service's Eastern Service full time in August 1941, he finally achieved "war service." He said he "accept[ed] absolutely the need for propaganda to be led by the government" and stressed the fact that discipline in government policy execution was crucial when interviewing for the position. He supervised cultural broadcasts in India to combat Nazi propaganda meant to destroy imperial links. This was Orwell's first encounter with rigid conformity in an office, and it gave him the opportunity to develop cultural programs with contributions from T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, E. M. Forster, Ahmed Ali, Mulk Raj Anand, and William Empson among other things.

Wells and H. G. Wells' dinner in August devolving into a feud because Wells had taken offence at Orwell's remarks in a Horizon column. Orwell had a bout of bronchitis in October and the disease recurred frequently. David Astor was looking for a provocative contributor to The Observer and asked Orwell to write for him; the first article to appear in March 1942 was published in March 1942. In early 1942, Eileen moved to the Ministry of Food, and the Orwells landed in Maida Vale/Kilburn, "the kind of lower-middle-class atmosphere that Orwell hoped for." Around the same time Orwell's mother and sister Avril, who had worked in a sheet-metal factory behind King's Cross Station, moved to a flat near George and Eileen.

Orwell introduced Voice, a literary programme for his Indian broadcasts, on the BBC, and by now, he was leading a lively social life with literary associates, especially on the political left. He began writing for the left-wing weekly Tribune in 1942; 306 : 441 directed by Labour MPs Aneurin Bevan and George Strauss. Orwell's mother died in March 1943, and Moore told Moore he was writing on a new book that turned out to be Animal Farm.

Orwell resigned from the BBC newspaper in September 1943, after two years as Prime Minister Theresa May. 352 His resignation came after a survey revealed that few Indians were listening to the broadcasts, but he was also keen to write Animal Farm. Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes was broadcast just six days before his last day of service on November 24, 1943. It was a sport in which he was extremely interested and that appeared on Animal Farm's title page. He resigned from the Home Guard due to medical reasons at the time.

Orwell was appointed literary editor at Tribune in November 1943, where his secretary, Jon Kimche, was his old friend. Orwell was on staff until early 1945, writing over 80 book reviews, and starting "As I Please" on December 3, 1943, the first column to address three or four topics in each. He was still writing for various publications, including Partisan Review, Horizon, and New York City, as well as becoming a respected pundit within left-wing circles, but also a close friend of people on the right, such as Powell, Astor, and Malcolm Muggeridge. Animal Farm was ready for publication in April 1944. Gollancz refused to publish it because it was an attack on the Soviet regime, which had been a key ally in the conflict. Other publishers (including T. S. Eliot at Faber and Faber) were met with a similar fate before Jonathan Cape decided to take it.

Due to the friendships of Eileen O'Shaughnessy, then a doctor in Newcastle upon Tyne, the Orwells had the opportunity to adopt a child in May. A V-1 flying bomb wreaked havoc on Mortimer Crescent in June, and the Orwells had to find somewhere else to live. Orwell had to scramble over his bookshe had managed to get from Wallington, wheeling them away in a wheelbarrow. Cape's reversal of his effort to publish Animal Farm was yet another blow. The decision was made following Peter Smollett's personal visit to the Ministry of Information, who is an official with the Ministry of Information. Smollett was later identified as a Soviet agent.

The Orwells spent some time in the North East, near Carlton, County Durham, dealing with issues surrounding an adoption of a child that they referred to as Richard Horatio Blair. They had built a house in Islington, at 27b Canonbury Square, by September 1944. Baby Richard joined them there, and Eileen left her job at the Ministry of Food to look after her family. Animal Farm, a Secker & Warburg company, had agreed to print it in March, but it didn't appear in print until August 1945. David Astor had invited Orwell to become a war correspondent for The Observer by February 1945. Orwell had been waiting for the opportunity during the war but his inability prevented him from being allowed anywhere near action. He came first to liberate Paris and later moved to Germany and Austria, then on to Cologne and Stuttgart. He was never in the front line and was never under fire, but he kept the troops closely, "sometimes entering a captured town the day after it was fallen, while dead bodies lay in the streets." In the Manchester Evening News, several of his studies were published.

It was when Eileen went into hospital for a hysterectomy and died in anaesthetic on March 29, 1945. She had not warned Orwell about the cost and because she was hoping to get a quick recovery. Orwell returned home for a while and then returned to Europe. At the start of July, he returned to London to cover the 1945 general election. Animal Farm: A Fairy Tale was published in Britain on August 17, 1945, and a year later in the United States on August 26, 1946.

Animal Farm had a particular place in the post-war period, and Orwell's worldwide success made Orwell a highly sought-after figure. Orwell wrote his best-known piece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, which was released in 1949, and did mixed journalistic work for Tribune, The Observer, and the Manchester Evening News, mainly for Tribune, The Observer and the Manchester Evening News. He was a leading figure in the so-called Shanghai Club (named after a restaurant in Soho) of left-leaning and émigré journalists, including E. H. Carr, Sebastian Haffner, Isaac Deutscher, Barbara Ward, and Jon Kimche.

In the year following Eileen's death, he published around 130 articles and a collection of his Critical Essays, as well as being involved in a number of political advocacy campaigns. Susan Watson, a housekeeper, was sent to look after his adopted son at the Islington flat, which visitors now refer to as "bleak." He spent a fortnight on the island of Jura in the Inner Hebrides in September and considered it as a place to escape from London literary life's bustle. On Jura, David Astor was instrumental in the planning of a location for Orwell. Astor's family owned Scottish estates in the area, and Robin Fletcher, a fellow Old Etonian, owned a house on the island. Orwell made several hopeful and unwelcome marriage plans to younger women, including Celia Kirwan (who later became Arthur Koestler's niece-in-law); Ann Popham, one of Connolly's coterie, and Sonia Brownell, one of Connolly's coterie at the Horizon office. Orwell had a tubercular hemoglobophilic disease in February 1946, but he disguised it. Orwell wrote an article on "British Cookery" in 1945 or early 1946, when still living in Canonbury Square and requesting recipes from the British Council. Given the post-war era's scarcity, neither side and the government have decided not to reveal it. Marjorie died of kidney disease in May, and Orwell, who died soon after, on the Isle of Jura, in a house called Barnhill, began to live.

This was an abandoned farmhouse with outbuildings near the island's northern end of the island, at the end of a five-mile (8 km) rutted track from Ardlussa, where the owners lived. The farmhouse's circumstances were primitive, but Orwell was attracted by the area's natural history and the challenge of transforming the place. His sister Avril attended him, and young novelist Paul Potts joined the party. Susan Watson and Orwell's son Richard were born in July. Tensions grew and Potts departed after one of his manuscripts was used to light the fire. Orwell is also scheduled to work on Nineteen Eighty-Four. Susan Watson's boyfriend, David Holbrook, arrived later. Orwell's apprehension since school, he discovered the truth very different, with Orwell hostile and dissatisfied due to Holbrook's membership in the Communist Party. Watson could no longer abide being with Avril and her boyfriend, and she and her boyfriend left.

Orwell returned to London in late 1946 and revived his literary journalism. He was drowned with writing as a well-known writer. Apart from a trip to Jura in the new year, he stayed in London for one of the worst British winters on record, and with such a national shortage of fuel that he burnedt his furniture and his children's toys. The heavy fog in the days leading up to the Clean Air Act 1956 did not do much to improve his health, which was reticent, leaving no room for medical care. In addition, he had to contend with rival allegations of publishing rights for publishers Gollancz and Warburg. At this time, he co-edited a collection titled British Pamphleteers with Reginald Reynolds. Orwell's senior partner, Jack Harrison, was expecting a large bill from Inland Revenue as a result of Animal Farm's success. Orwell was advised by the company to establish a "service agreement" in order to earn his royalties and be able to collect his royalties so he could draw a paycheck. "George Orwell Productions Ltd" (GOP Ltd), a such firm, was established on September 12, 1947, but the service contract was not yet in place. At this point, Jack Harrison gave the particulars to his junior colleagues.

Orwell left London for Jura on April 10, 1947. In July, he brought an end to the Wallington cottage's lease. He appeared on Nineteen Eighties-Four and made good strides. During that time, his sister's relatives visited, and Orwell organized a tragic boating expedition on August 19th, which almost resulted in death when attempting to cross the infamous Gulf of Corryvreckan and giving him a soaking that was not beneficial to his health. A chest specialist from Glasgow was summoned in December, and a week before Christmas 1947, a chest specialist from Edinburgh, then a small village in the countryside, was transported to Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride, Glasgow's outskirts. Tuberculosis was diagnosed, and Orwell's request for authorization to import streptomycin to treat Orwell went as far as Aneurin Bevan, then Minister of Health, before reaching Minister of Health. Orwell began his streptomycin course on 19 or 20 February 1948, David Astor assisted with production and payment, and Orwell began his streptomycin journey. Orwell was able to return to Jura by the end of July 1948, and by December, he had completed the Nineteen Eighty-Four manuscript. He began with a sanatorium in Cranham, Gloucestershire, which was escorted by Richard Rees in January 1949. Streptomycin could not be continued by Orwell, as he suffered acute epidermal necrolysis, a rare side effect of streptomycin.

In a remote area of the Cotswolds near Stroud, the sanatorium at Cranham consisted of a string of small wooden chalets or huts. Orwell's appearance astounded visitors, who were alarmed by Orwell's appearance and concerned with the treatment's ineffectiveness and inability. Friends were concerned about his finances, but by now, he was remarkably well off. He was writing to many of his relatives, including Jacintha Buddicom, who had "rediscovered" him, and Celia Kirwan visited him in March 1949. Kirwan had just started working for the Information Research Department (IRD), which was set up by the Labour government to produce anti-communist propaganda, and Orwell sent her a list of people he disliked as IRD authors due to their pro-communist leanings. Orwell's list, which wasn't published until 2003, was mainly composed of writers, but also included actors and Labour MPs. The IRD commissioned cartoon strips drawn by Norman Pett to be published in newspapers around the world to further promote Animal Farm. Orwell received more streptomycin therapy and improved marginally. This repeat dose of streptomycin, especially after the side effects had been noted, has been described as "ill-advised." Penicillin was then given by a doctor who knew full well that it was ineffective against tuberculosis. It is believed that it was used to repair his bronchictasis. Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in June 1949, to critical acclaim.

Orwell's health began to decline after being diagnosed with tuberculosis in December 1947. He courted Sonia Brownell in mid-1949 and the two engaged in September, just before he was barred from University College Hospital in London. Sonia took over Orwell's affairs and followed him closely in the hospital. Sonia was a natural beauty, and many people were left wondering about her motives because her marriage of a sick wealthy man when his death was almost certain.

Orwell invited Harrison to visit him in hospital in September 1949, and Harrison said Orwell invited him to become the head of GOP Ltd and run the company as an executive. However, there was no independent witness. On October 13, 1949, Orwell's wedding took place in the hospital room, with David Astor as the best man. Orwell was in decline and was visited by a variety of visitors, including Muggeridge, Connolly, Lucian Freud, Stephen Spender, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, and his Eton tutor Anthony Gow. Plans to cross the Swiss Alps were postponed. Further meetings were held with his accountant, at which Harrison and Mr. Blair were confirmed as the company's directors, and at which Harrison announced that the "service agreement" was signed, granting copyright to the firm. By Christmas, Orwell's health had been in decline once more. Potts arrived in Orwell on January 20th, 1950, and snuckled away on the evening after finding him asleep. Jack Harrison visited Orwell later and found that the firm gave him 25% of the company. An artery burst in Orwell's lungs early on Monday morning, killing him at age 46.

Orwell had requested to be buried in accordance with the Anglican rite in the graveyard of the nearest church to wherever he had died. The graveyards in central London were lacking space, and so his widow wrote to his relatives to see if any of them knew of a church with space in its graveyard, as an attempt to ensure his last wishes were fulfilled. David Astor lived in Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, and arranged for Orwell to be laid to rest in the churchyard of All Saints' cathedral. "Here lies Eric Arthur Blair, born June 25th 1903; died January 21st 1950," Orwell's gravestone bears the epitaph; no mention is made of his more popular pen name. Richard Horatio Blair, Orwell's adopted son, was picked up by Orwell's sister Avril. He is a member of The Orwell Society.

Sonia Brownell brought a High Court lawsuit against Harrison in 1979, when he announced an intention to subdivide his 25 percent interest in the corporation among his three children. For Sonia, the repercussions of this manoeuvre may have made total control of the company three times more difficult. She had a solid argument but was later ill and eventually was compelled to withdraw from court on November 2, 1980. She died on December 11, 1980, at the age of 62.

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Literary career and legacy

Orwell's career was best known for his journalism, including essays, studies, columns, journals, and books of reportage (reporting the living conditions of the poor in northern England and class division generally). Homage to Catalonia. Orwell was "the best English essayist since Hazlitt, perhaps since Dr. Johnson," according to Irving Howe.

Orwell's younger readers are increasingly introduced to him as a novelist, particularly because of his extremely popular titles Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The former is often thought to represent stagnation in the Soviet Union following the Russian Revolution and Stalin's emergence; the former, who lived under totalitarian rule. Nineteen Eighty-Four is often compared to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley; both are influential dystopian books that warn of a future where the state machine exerts complete control of social life. The Protheus Award was given to Nineteen Eighty-Four and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in 1984 for their contributions to dystopian literature. He earned it again in 2011 for Animal Farm. Nineteen Eighty-Four appeared on BBC's The Big Read poll in 2003, with Animal Farm at number 8 and Animal Farm at number 46. Nineteen Eighty-Fourth third in a list of "The best books of the last 125 years" in 2021.

His last book before World War II, Coming Up for Air, his most "English" of his novels, is alarming; images of idyllic Thames-side Edwardian childhood protagonist George Bowling's idyllic childhood are included in his book. The book is pessimistic; industrialism and capitalism have killed Old England's best, and there are still plenty of new external threats. "Old Hitler's something different" is its protagonist George Bowling's argument focuses on Franz Borkenau's totalitarian hypotheses. So's Joe Stalin. They aren't like these chaps from the old days, who crucified people and chopped their heads off and on, just for the fun of it. They're something new—something that hasn't been heard of before."

"The writers I care about most and never grow tired of are Shakespeare, Swift, Fielding, Dickens, Charles Reade, Flaubert, and, among modern writers, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and D. H. Lawrence wrote in an autobiographical essay sent by Orwell to the editors of Twentieth Century Authors in 1940. However, I think the modern writer who has inspired me the most is W. Somerset Maugham, who I adore greatly for his ability to tell a tale clearly and without frills." Orwell praised Jack London's book The Road in particular. Orwell's poverty in The Road to Wigan Pier closely resembles that of Jack London's The People of the Abyss, in which the American journalist disguised himself as an out-of-work sailor to investigate the lives of the poor in London. "Politics vs. s. Gulliver's Travels (1946) Orwell wrote: "I would certainly make a list of six books that were to be preserved if none of them were destroyed, but Gulliver's Travels would be included among them." "The minds of many of us, and therefore the physical world, would be quite different if Wells had never existed," he said.

Orwell was an Arthur Koestler fan and became a close friend during the three years that Koestler and his wife Mamain spent at Bwlch Ocyn, a secluded farmhouse that belonged to Clough Williams-Ellis, in the Vale of Ffestiniog. In 1941, Orwell wrote a book about Koestler's Darkness at Noon for the New Statesman.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Gissing, Graham Greene, Herman Melville, Henry Miller, Tobias Smollett, Joseph Conrad, and Yevgeny Zamyatin were among Orwell's favorite writers. He praised Kipling as a "spurious" and "morally insensitive and visually disgusting writer," but he was also a critic of Rudyard Kipling, who was praised as a "good bad poet" whose work is "spurious" and "aesthetically disgusting," but he was also able to relate to certain aspects of reality more accurately than more enlightened writers. He had a similar ambivalent reaction to G. K. Chesterton, who devoted himself to "Roman Catholicism," and Evelyn Waugh, who was criticized as "ab[ou]t as good a novelist as one can be," he wrote. "As novelists go" today, they have a critical outlook."

Orwell has always promoted himself as a book reviewer throughout his life. His books are well-known and have a lot of influence on literary criticism. In the concluding to his 1940 essay on Charles Dickens, he wrote a letter.

Orwell, according to George Woodcock, the last two sentences also describe Orwell.

Orwell wrote a review of George Bernard Shaw's play Arms and the Man. Shaw considered this Shaw's best play and that it is likely to remain socially relevant due to the fact that war is not, essentially speaking, a glorious romantic journey. In Defense of P.G., 1945's essay In Defense of P.G. Wodehouse's book is accompanied by a witty review of his writing, as well as the fact that his radio broadcasts from Germany (during the war) did not really make him a traitor. Wodehouse's activities were debunked by the Ministry of Information, according to him.

The British Council commissioned Orwell to write an article on British food in 1946 as part of a campaign to foster British relations abroad. Orwell's book titled British Cookery described the British diet as a "simple, robust, perhaps marginal diet" and in which "hot drinks are acceptable at any hour of the day. "This is not a snack but a serious meal," he addresses in the United Kingdom's breakfast ritual. The time at which people have their breakfast is determined of course by the time they get to work. High tea in the United Kingdom consisted of a variety of savory and sweet dishes, but "no tea will be considered a good one if it did not include at least one kind of cake," he said, "as well as cakes and biscuits are commonly eaten at tea time." Orwell also included a recipe for marmalade, a common British spread on bread. The British Council, on the other hand, refused to publish the paper on the grounds that writing about food at a time when strict rationing was not feasible in the United Kingdom. The essay was discovered in the British Council's archives in 2019, as well as the rejection letter. Orwell's official apology for the commissioned essay's rejection was released by the British Council.

Orwell's "uncompromising intellectual honesty made him appear almost inhuman at times," Arthur Koestler said. "Orwell's writing pierced intellectual hypocrisy wherever he looked." "Orwell, the saint of common decency who would have in earlier days," his BBC boss Rushbrook Williams said, "have either canonized or burned at the stake." Orwell is described as a "successful impersonation of a plain man who stumbles into action in a nonmediated way and shares the truth about it," Raymond Williams writes in Politics and Letters. Orwell's "homespun empiricist" outlook, assuming that the truth was only there to be told in a clear and concrete manner, is now seeming not to be purely ignorant but culpably self-deluding. Orwell has been dubbed an enemy of the Left by American scholar Scott Lucas. Despite Orwell's insistence that they were not," John Newsinger has argued that Lucas could only do this by presenting "all of Orwell's attacks on Stalinism [–] as if they were crimes against socialism [–]

Orwell's work has earned a central position in England's school literature curriculum, with Animal Farm as a regular examination topic at the end of secondary education (GCSE), and Nineteen Eighty-Four being a subject for subsequent examinations below university level (A Levels). Animal Farm was ranked as the nation's most popular textbook from school in a 2016 UK survey.

In May 2015, Orwell's birthplace, a bungalow in Motihari, Bihar, India, was opened as a museum.

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