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Against imperialism

From the road to wigan pier to world war ii.

• Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four

Where was George Orwell educated?

Why was george orwell famous.

• What does socialism mean?
• Did socialism come from Marxism?
• How does socialism differ from capitalism?

George Orwell

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• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - George Orwell
• Historic UK - George Orwell
• The National Endowment for the Humanities - George Orwell, Outdoorsman
• The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction - George Orwell
• Official Site of The Orwell Foundation
• Spartacus Educational - Biography of George Orwell
• George Orwell - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

What did George Orwell write?

George Orwell wrote the political fable Animal Farm (1944), the anti-utopian novel Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), the unorthodox political treatise The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), and the autobiographical Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), which contains essays that recount actual events in a fictionalized form.

George Orwell won scholarships to two of England’s leading schools, Wellington and Eton colleges. He briefly attended the former before transferring to the latter, where Aldous Huxley was one of his teachers. Instead of going on to a university, Orwell entered the British Imperial service and worked as a colonial police officer.

What was George Orwell’s family like?

George Orwell was brought up in an atmosphere of impoverished snobbery, first in India and then in England. His father was a minor British official in the Indian civil service and his mother was the daughter of an unsuccessful teak merchant. Their attitudes were those of the “landless gentry.”

George Orwell wrote two hugely influential novels: Animal Farm (1944), a satire that allegorically depicted Joseph Stalin ’s betrayal of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), a chilling warning against totalitarianism. The latter deeply impressed readers with ideas that entered mainstream culture in a way achieved by few books.

George Orwell (born June 25, 1903, Motihari , Bengal, India—died January 21, 1950, London, England) was an English novelist, essayist, and critic famous for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949). The latter of these is a profound anti- utopian novel that examines the dangers of totalitarian rule.

Born Eric Arthur Blair, Orwell never entirely abandoned his original name, but his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London , appeared in 1933 as the work of George Orwell (the surname he derived from the beautiful River Orwell in East Anglia ). In time his nom de plume became so closely attached to him that few people but relatives knew his real name was Blair. The change in name corresponded to a profound shift in Orwell’s lifestyle, in which he changed from a pillar of the British imperial establishment into a literary and political rebel.

He was born in Bengal , India , into the class of sahibs. His father was a minor British official in the Indian civil service; his mother, of French extraction, was the daughter of an unsuccessful teak merchant in Burma ( Myanmar ). Their attitudes were those of the “landless gentry,” as Orwell later called lower-middle-class people whose pretensions to social status had little relation to their income. Orwell was thus brought up in an atmosphere of impoverished snobbery. After returning with his parents to England , he was sent in 1911 to a preparatory boarding school on the Sussex coast, where he was distinguished among the other boys by his poverty and his intellectual brilliance. He grew up a morose, withdrawn, eccentric boy, and he was later to tell of the miseries of those years in his posthumously published autobiographical essay , Such, Such Were the Joys (1953).

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 Orwell 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 and in two brilliant autobiographical sketches, “ Shooting an Elephant” and “ A Hanging,” classics of expository prose .

In 1927 Orwell, on leave to England, decided not to return to Burma, and on January 1, 1928, he took the decisive step of resigning from the imperial police. Already in the autumn of 1927 he had started on a course of action that was to shape his character as a writer. Having felt guilty that the barriers of race and caste had prevented his mingling with the Burmese, he thought he could expiate some of his guilt by immersing himself in the life of the poor and outcast people of Europe . Donning ragged clothes, he went into the East End of London to live in cheap lodging houses among laborers and beggars; he spent a period in the impoverished sections of Paris and worked as a dishwasher in French hotels and restaurants; he tramped the roads of England with professional vagrants and joined the working-class people of London in their annual exodus to work in the hopfields of Kent .

Those experiences gave Orwell the material for Down and Out in Paris and London , in which actual incidents are rearranged into something like fiction. The book’s publication in 1933 earned him some initial literary recognition. Orwell’s first novel, Burmese Days (1934), established the pattern of his subsequent fiction in its portrayal of a sensitive, conscientious , and emotionally isolated individual who is at odds with an oppressive or dishonest social environment . The main character of Burmese Days is a minor administrator who seeks to escape from the dreary and narrow-minded chauvinism of his fellow British colonialists in Burma. His sympathies for the Burmese, however, end in an unforeseen personal tragedy. The protagonist of Orwell’s next novel, A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935), is an unhappy spinster who achieves a brief and accidental liberation in her experiences among some agricultural laborers. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) is about a literarily inclined bookseller’s assistant who despises the empty commercialism and materialism of middle-class life but who in the end is reconciled to bourgeois prosperity by his forced marriage to the girl he loves.

Orwell’s revulsion against imperialism led not only to his personal rejection of the bourgeois lifestyle but to a political reorientation as well. Immediately after returning from Burma he called himself an anarchist and continued to do so for several years; during the 1930s, however, he began to consider himself a socialist , though he was too libertarian in his thinking ever to take the further step—so common in the period—of declaring himself a communist .

Orwell’s first socialist book was an original and unorthodox political treatise titled The Road to Wigan Pier (1937). It begins by describing his experiences when he went to live among the destitute and unemployed miners of northern England, sharing and observing their lives; it ends in a series of sharp criticisms of existing socialist movements. It combines mordant reporting with a tone of generous anger that was to characterize Orwell’s subsequent writing.

By the time The Road to Wigan Pier was in print, Orwell was in Spain ; he went to report on the Civil War there and stayed to join the Republican militia, serving on the Aragon and Teruel fronts and rising to the rank of second lieutenant. He was seriously wounded at Teruel, with damage to his throat permanently affecting his voice and endowing his speech with a strange, compelling quietness. Later, in May 1937, after having fought in Barcelona against communists who were trying to suppress their political opponents, he was forced to flee Spain in fear of his life. The experience left him with a lifelong dread of communism, first expressed in the vivid account of his Spanish experiences, Homage to Catalonia (1938), which many consider one of his best books.

Returning to England, Orwell showed a paradoxically conservative strain in writing Coming Up for Air (1939), in which he uses the nostalgic recollections of a middle-aged man to examine the decency of a past England and express his fears about a future threatened by war and fascism . When World War II did come, Orwell was rejected for military service , and instead he headed the Indian service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). He left the BBC in 1943 and became literary editor of the Tribune , a left-wing socialist paper associated with the British Labour leader Aneurin Bevan . At this period Orwell was a prolific journalist, writing many newspaper articles and reviews, together with serious criticism , like his classic essays on Charles Dickens and on boys’ weeklies and a number of books about England (notably The Lion and the Unicorn , 1941) that combined patriotic sentiment with the advocacy of a libertarian , decentralist socialism very much unlike that practiced by the British Labour Party .

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell

George Orwell, originally named Eric Arthur Blair, was born on June 25, 1903, in Motihari, Bengal Presidency, British India (present-day Bihar, India). He was the second of three children in the Blair family. His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked in the Indian Civil Service, and his mother, Ida Mabel Blair, took care of the family. In 1904, when Orwell was a year old, his family moved to England, where he spent much of his early childhood.

The Blairs settled in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. However, due to his father's occupation, Orwell spent some of his early years in boarding schools, including St. Cyprian's, a preparatory school in Eastbourne. His experiences at St. Cyprian's later served as the basis for his critique of English public school life in his essay "Such, Such Were the Joys".

Orwell's childhood was marked by financial constraints, as his father's salary was not substantial. This led to Orwell receiving scholarships for his education, and he attended Eton College, a prestigious boarding school. Despite the financial struggles, Orwell excelled academically at Eton and developed an early interest in literature and writing. After completing his education at Eton, Orwell decided not to attend university due to financial concerns.

Imperial Service in Burma and Early Adulthood

In 1922, Orwell ventured into the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, serving in a colonial outpost. This experience, marked by the harsh realities of imperial rule, sparked Orwell's growing disdain for oppressive systems. In 1927, Orwell resigned from the police force, embarking on a journey of self-discovery and literary exploration.

Orwell's official role in Burma was that of a police officer, and he was stationed in various locations, including Mandalay and Moulmein. His job involved enforcing British colonial rule, and he witnessed firsthand the oppressive nature of imperialism. The colonial administration in Burma, which was under British control, treated the local population with disdain, contributing to Orwell's growing sense of unease and moral discomfort.

During his time in Burma, Orwell became increasingly critical of the imperialist system. He observed the exploitation and mistreatment of the Burmese people by the British authorities, as well as the corruption within the colonial apparatus. His empathy for the oppressed and his disdain for the colonial establishment led to a growing sense of disillusionment with the role he played in enforcing imperial rule.

One notable incident that had a profound impact on Orwell occurred in 1926 when he witnessed the execution of a Burmese prisoner. The experience left a lasting impression on him, and he later wrote about it in his essay "A Hanging." In this essay, Orwell vividly described the dehumanizing nature of the execution and reflected on the arbitrary and cruel exercise of power by the colonial rulers.

Orwell's time in Burma also provided material for his first novel, "Burmese Days," published in 1934. The novel is a scathing critique of British colonialism in Burma, and it draws heavily from Orwell's own experiences. Through the characters and events in the novel, Orwell highlighted the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by those caught in the web of imperialism.

"Burmese Days" portrays the racism, corruption, and cultural clashes that characterized British rule in Burma. The novel explores the impact of imperialist policies on both the oppressors and the oppressed, offering a searing indictment of the injustices inherent in the colonial system. Orwell's portrayal of the characters and the setting in "Burmese Days" reflects his disillusionment with the imperialist project and foreshadows the anti-authoritarian themes that would dominate his later works.

In early 1928, George Orwell moved to Paris, residing in the rue du Pot de Fer, a working-class district in the 5th arrondissement. His aunt Ellen Kate Limouzin, living in Paris, provided social and occasional financial support. During this period, Orwell started writing novels, including an early version of "Burmese Days," although none of these early works survive.

While his attempts at novel writing were not as successful during this time, Orwell found success as a journalist. He contributed articles to various publications, such as Monde, a political/literary journal edited by Henri Barbusse, G. K.'s Weekly, and Le Progrès Civique. His first professional article, "La Censure en Angleterre," appeared in Monde in October 1928, and "A Farthing Newspaper," his first article published in England, appeared in G. K.'s Weekly in December 1928.

Orwell's focus on poverty became a recurring theme in his work, evident in articles discussing unemployment, the lives of tramps, and the beggars of London. His experiences at the Hôpital Cochin in February 1929, where he was treated for a serious illness, formed the basis for his essay "How the Poor Die," published in 1946. Orwell deliberately obscured the hospital's location in his writings.

Facing financial challenges, Orwell took on menial jobs, such as dishwashing in a hotel on the rue de Rivoli, an experience he later documented in "Down and Out in Paris and London." In August 1929, he submitted "The Spike" to John Middleton Murry's New Adelphi magazine in London, and it was accepted for publication.

On December 1929, after two years in Paris, George Orwell returned to England, settling in Southwold, Suffolk, at his parents' house for the next five years. He immersed himself in the local community, developing friendships and connections, including Brenda Salkeld, a gym teacher at St Felix Girls' School. Although Salkeld declined his marriage proposal, they remained friends.

In early 1930, Orwell briefly stayed in Leeds with his sister Marjorie, working as a tutor and writing reviews for Adelphi. He tutored three young brothers, one of whom, Richard Peters, later became an academic. Orwell's life during this period was marked by dualities, alternating between a respectable life in Southwold and experiences as "Burton" in the East End and hop fields.

Orwell continued contributing to Adelphi, and in August 1931, "A Hanging" was published. His exploration of poverty led him to the Kent hop fields, where he kept a diary of his experiences. Financially supported by his parents, he moved to Windsor Street and later contributed "Hop Picking" to New Statesman in October 1931. Mabel Fierz introduced him to Leonard Moore, who became his literary agent in April 1932.

During this time, "A Scullion's Diary", the initial version of "Down and Out", was rejected by Jonathan Cape and Faber and Faber. Orwell deliberately got arrested at the end of the year to experience Christmas in prison, but his "drunk and disorderly" behavior did not lead to imprisonment, and he returned home to Southwold after two days in a cell.

Orwell's wife

Eileen Maud Blair (née O'Shaughnessy) was George Orwell's first wife. Born on September 25, 1905, in South Shields, England, she played various roles during her life, including working for the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Food during World War II.

Eileen received her education at Sunderland Church High School and later studied English at St Hugh's College, Oxford, earning a higher second-class degree in 1927. Her professional journey involved diverse jobs, including assistant mistress, secretary, and freelance journalist. She also assisted her brother, a thoracic surgeon, in typing and editing scientific papers.

In 1934, Eileen enrolled at University College London for a graduate course in educational psychology, where she developed an interest in testing intelligence in children.

Eileen met George Orwell (Eric Blair) in the spring of 1935. They married on June 9, 1936, at St Mary's Church, Wallington, Hertfordshire. Despite attempts to have children, Eileen did not become pregnant.

Spanish Civil War and Ideological Struggles

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), George Orwell chose to join the fight against fascism in Spain.

He enlisted in the militias of the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification), a Trotskyist group opposing the Franco-led fascist forces. Orwell's participation in the war and his time in Spain are documented in his work "Homage to Catalonia," published in 1938.

Despite his initial alignment with the POUM, Orwell found himself caught amid tensions and divisions within the republican side. Internal strife between communists and anarchists, coupled with political rivalries, created a hostile climate among the anti-fascist factions. The Soviet Union, influenced by the Spanish Communist Party and Stalin's directives, aimed to eliminate elements considered "disloyal" or "deviationist" within the republican forces.

Orwell, advocating for democratic socialism and critical of Stalinist influence, faced a perilous situation. During the communist purge in Barcelona in May 1937, the POUM militias were declared illegal, and Orwell had to go into hiding to avoid arrest. This experience fueled his disillusionment with Soviet politics and his aversion to totalitarianism, themes that would later manifest prominently in his works, particularly "1984" and "Animal Farm."

Orwell's involvement in the Spanish Civil War and his encounters with Trotskyism deeply shaped his political outlook and subsequent literary contributions. His commitment to fighting fascism and his disappointments with internal struggles among anti-fascist forces left a lasting imprint on his worldview and his work as a writer dedicated to truth-telling and exposing oppression. During George Orwell's participation in the Spanish Civil War, he indeed suffered a severe injury. In May 1937, while fighting on the side of the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista), Orwell was shot in the throat by a sniper during the Battle of Huesca. The injury damaged his vocal cords and left him in a critical condition.

After being wounded, Orwell was evacuated and spent some time recovering in a hospital. His experiences during the war, as well as the political intrigues and factionalism among the anti-fascist forces, deeply affected him. Orwell's injury left him with a permanently changed voice and contributed to his growing disillusionment with the internal conflicts within the Republican side. She volunteered for a position in the office of John McNair, the leader of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), who was responsible for coordinating the arrival of British volunteers.

Eileen's role involved organizing logistics for the ILP men at the front and overseeing the supply, communications, and banking operations for the entire contingent. With the assistance of Georges Kopp, she paid visits to her husband, George Orwell, who was fighting in the war. During these visits, Eileen brought him English tea, chocolate, and cigars, providing not only essential supplies but also emotional support during a challenging time.

Her dedication to supporting the cause and her active involvement in the war effort highlight Eileen's significant role in the Spanish Civil War and her unwavering support for her husband.

By June 1937, the political situation had deteriorated and Orwell and Eileen were under threat from Stalinists. Anna Funder believes that the Spanish experience is particularly revealing of Orwell's attempt to erase or minimise the importance of Eileen in his life and work:

"Eileen got them both out of Spain by fronting up to the same police prefecture those men had probably been sent from, to get the visas they needed to leave. One biographer eliminates her with the passive voice, writing: 'By now, thanks to the British consulate, their passports were in order.' In Homage, Orwell mentions 'my wife' 37 times but never once names her. No character can come to life without a name. But from a wife, which is a job description, all can be stolen. I wondered what she felt as she typed those pages".

After she got their passports in order, she and Orwell escaped from Spain by train, diverting to Banyuls-sur-Mer for a short stay before returning to England.

Literary Career

Orwell's literary output was prolific, encompassing novels, essays, and journalism. "Animal Farm," an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the dangers of totalitarianism, was published in 1945. It was followed by "1984", a dystopian masterpiece that explored the consequences of a surveillance state and totalitarian control. Orwell's keen insights into political manipulation, language, and power dynamics became hallmarks of his work.

His journalism, often reflective and incisive, included contributions to various publications. "The Lion and the Unicorn" (1941) collected his wartime essays, showcasing his commitment to democratic socialism and his critique of fascism.

Personal Life and Legacy

George Orwell married Eileen O'Shaughnessy in 1936, and they remained together until her death. Eileen died on 29 March 1945 in Newcastle upon Tyne under anaesthetic, which is extremely suspicious and indicative of foul play. There was no investigation regarding her death. Orwell later married Sonia Brownell in 1949. Orwell himself died from tuberculosis on January 21, 1950, at the age of 46. Tuberculosis was considered treatable at the time and not a death sentence and had an extremely low mortality rate, and the fact that George Orwell died only a few days before his planned move from UK to Switzerland, is something deeply strange and it seems that the medical treatment was deliberately incompetent.

George Orwell's legacy extends far beyond his lifetime. His commitment to democratic socialism, his critique of totalitarianism, and his exploration of the abuse of power continue to resonate. The terms "Orwellian" and "Big Brother" have become synonymous with the perils of government overreach and surveillance. Orwell's literary brilliance and social conscience have left an indelible mark on 20th-century literature and political thought, ensuring his enduring relevance in the realms of literature, politics, and social commentary.

Biography Online

Biography George Orwell

Orwell’s Early life

Orwell was born Eric Blair on 25 June 1903, in Motihari, Bihar, in India. Shortly after his birth, he was taken by his mother back to Oxfordshire, England. His family were financially poor, but an aspiring middle-class family. Orwell described it as ‘lower-upper-middle-class’ – a reflection of the importance he felt the English attached to class labels.

With his family unable to afford fees to a proper public school, he was educated at St Cyprian’s in Eastbourne, which served as a preliminary crammer to gaining a scholarship for public schools like Eton. In a later essay “Such, Such were the Joys” he was scathing of his time at St Cyprian’s noting how difficult it was to be happy in such a mean-spirited environment. Aged 14, he was able to move to Eton, where he had better memories because of the greater intellectual stimulation. However, the awareness of being much poorer than many of his school friends remained. He left Eton with firmly held “middle class” values but at the same time a sense of unease with his social position.

After school, he was unable to afford university, and for want of a better option, Orwell took a job with the Burmese civil service. It was here in Burma, that Orwell would begin to assert his independence from his privileged upbringing. Revealingly, Orwell later told how he found himself rooting for the local population, and despising the imperial ideology which he represented. He resigned from his position in 1927. In an essay Shooting the Elephant he describes he feelings on Burma:

“ Theoretically and secretly of course, I was always for the Burmese and all against the oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear” (1)

It was in the nature of George Orwell to try and see a situation from other people’s point of view. He was unhappy at accepting the conventional social wisdom. In fact, he grew to despise his middle-class upbringing so much he decided to spend time as a tramp. He wanted to experience life from the view of the gutter. His vivid experiences are recorded in his book “ Down and out in Paris and London ”. No longer could Orwell be described as a “Champagne Socialist”; by living with the poorest and underprivileged,  he gained a unique insight into the practical workings of working class ideas and working-class politics.

The Road to Wigan Pier

In the middle of the great depression, Orwell undertook another experience travelling to Wigan; an industrial town in Lancashire experiencing the full effects of mass unemployment and poverty. Orwell freely admitted how, as a young child, he was brought up to despise the working class. He vividly tells how he was obsessed with the idea that the working classes smelt:

“At a distance.. I could agonise over their sufferings, but I still hated them and despised them when I came anywhere near them .” (2)

The Road to Wigan Pier offered a penetrating insight into the condition of the working classes. It was also a right of passage for Orwell to live amongst the people he had once, from a distance, despised. The Road to Wigan Pier inevitably had a political message, but characteristically of Orwell, it was not all pleasing to the left. For example, it was less than flattering towards the Communist party. This was despite the book being promoted by a mostly Communist organisation – The Left Book club.

Orwell and the Spanish Civil War

It was fighting in the Spanish Civil war that Orwell came to really despise Communist influences. In 1936, Orwell volunteered to fight for the fledgeling Spanish Republic, who at the time were fighting the Fascist forces of General  Franco. It was a conflict that polarised nations. To the left, the war was a symbol of a real socialist revolution, based on the principles of equality and freedom. It was for these ideals that many international volunteers, from around the world, went to Spain to fight on behalf of the Republic. Orwell found himself in the heart of the Socialist revolution in Barcelona. He was assigned to an Anarchist – Trotskyist party – P.O.U.M. More than most other left-wing parties, they believed in the ideal of a real Marxist revolution. To members of the P.O.U.M, the war was not just about fighting the Fascist menace but also delivering a Socialist revolution for the working classes. In his book, “ Homage to Catalonia ” Orwell writes of his experiences; he notes the inefficiency with which the Spanish fought even wars. He was enthused by the revolutionary fervour of some of his party members; however, one of the overriding impressions was his perceived betrayal of the Republic, by the Stalinist backed Communist party.

“ the Communists stood not upon the extreme Left, but upon the extreme right. In reality this should come as no surprise, because the tactics of the Communist parties elsewhere ” (3)

Unwittingly he found himself engaged in a civil war amongst the left, as the Soviet Union backed Communist party turned on the Trotskyite factions like P.O.U.M. In the end, Orwell narrowly escaped with his life, after being shot in the throat. He was able to return to England, but he had learnt at first hand how revolutions could easily be betrayed; ideas that would later shape his seminal work “ Animal Farm .”

Orwell at the BBC

During the Second World War, Orwell was declared unfit for active duty. He actively supported the war effort from the start. (He didn’t wait for the Soviet Union to enter like some communists.) He also began writing for the left-leaning magazine ‘The Tribune’ which was associated with the left of the Labour Party. Orwell was appointed editor and was enthusiastic in supporting the radical Labour government of 1945, which implemented a national health service, welfare state and nationalisation of major industries. However, Orwell was not just focused on politics, he took an active interest in working class life and English culture. His short essays investigated aspects of English life from fish and chips to the eleven rules of making a good cup of tea.

Orwell described himself as a secular humanist and could be critical of organised religion in his writings. However, he had a fondness for the social and cultural aspect of the Church of England and attended services intermittently.

Barnhill. Jura

He married Eileen O’Shaughnessy in 1936 and in 1944, they adopted a three-week old child – Richard Horatio. Orwell was devastated when Eileen died and sought to remarry – seeking a mother for his young son. He asked several women for their hand in marriage, with Sonia Branwell accepting in 1949 – despite Orwell’s increasingly poor health. Orwell was a heavy smoker and this affected his lungs causing bronchial problems. In the last years of his life, he moved to a remote farm on the Scottish island of Jura to concentrate on his writings. Orwell passed away on 21 January 1950. His friend David Astor helped him to be buried at Sutton Courtenay churchyard, Oxfordshire.

The two great novels of Orwell were “ Animal Farm ” and “ 1984 ”. Animal Farm is a simple allegory for revolutions which go wrong, based primarily on the Russian revolution. 1984 is a dystopian nightmare about the dangers of a totalitarian state which gains complete control over its citizens.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of George Orwell”, Oxford, www.biographyonline.net 3 Feb. 2013. Last updated 4 Feb 2018.

• The Socialism of George Orwell
• George Orwell Quotes
• George Orwell, “Shooting an elephant”, George Orwell selected writings (1958) p.25
• George Orwell, “Road to Wigan Pier” (Harmondswith) 1980 p.130
• George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia 1959 p.58

George Orwell – a collection of essays

George Orwell – a collection of essays at Amazon.com

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“My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience.”

George Orwell,  Why I Write

George Orwell was born Eric Blair in India in 1903 into a comfortable ‘lower-upper-middle class’ family. Orwell’s father had served the British Empire, and Orwell’s own first job was as a policeman in Burma. Orwell wrote in “Shooting an Elephant” (1936) that his time in the police force had shown him the “dirty work of Empire at close quarters”; the experience made him a lifelong foe of imperialism.

By the time of his death in 1950, he was world-renowned as a journalist and author: for his eyewitness reporting on war (shot in the neck in Spain ) and poverty ( tramping in London, washing dishes in Paris or visiting pits and the poor in Wigan ); for his political and cultural commentary , where he stood up to power and said the unsayable ( ‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’ ); and for his fiction, including two of the most popular novels ever written: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four .

The Orwell Foundation maintains a wealth of Orwell resources, free to access online, from Orwell’s  essays  and  diaries , to a library of work about Orwell and his writing. Read on for an extended biography written by D.J. Taylor. Taylor is an author, journalist and critic. His Biography of Orwell,  Orwell: the Life won the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award.

As part of our wider commitment to promote knowledge and understanding of Orwell’s life and work, the Foundation also regularly releases new short educational films. These are free to access on YouTube and include contributions from Orwell’s son Richard Blair, D. J. Taylor, and previous winners of the Orwell Prizes:

• The Night Orwell Died
• George Orwell and the Battle for Animal Farm
• ‘Some Thoughts on the Common Toad’: 75th anniversary film

The Orwell Foundation is an independent charity – please consider making a donation or becoming a Friend of the Foundation to support our work and maintain these resources for readers everywhere. 

External links:

• The Orwell Society, an independent, worldwide membership society
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7 Facts About George Orwell

His real name is Eric Blair

As a child, Orwell yearned to become a famous author, but he intended to publish as E.A. Blair, not his birth name, Eric Blair (he didn't feel the name Eric was suitable for a writer). However, when his first book came out — Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) — a complete pseudonym was necessary (he felt his family wouldn't appreciate the public knowing their Eton-educated son had worked as a dishwasher and lived as a tramp).

Orwell provided his publisher with a list of potential pseudonyms. In addition to George Orwell, which was his preference, the other choices were: P.S. Burton, Kenneth Miles and H. Lewis Allways.

He was spied on during the Spanish Civil War

Orwell not only wrote about state surveillance, but he also experienced it. Biographer Gordon Bowker found the Soviet Union had an undercover agent spying on Orwell and other leftists while they were fighting in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Secret police in Spain also seized diaries Orwell had made while in the country and probably passed them to the NKVD (predecessor to the KGB).

In addition, his own government kept track of Orwell (a fact he was likely unaware of). This began in 1929 when he volunteered to write for a left-wing publication in France. The police also paid attention when Orwell visited coal miners in 1936 while gathering information for The Road to Wigan Pier (1937). In 1942, a police sergeant reported to MI5 that Orwell had "advanced communist views" and dressed "in a bohemian fashion, both at his office and in his leisure hours." Fortunately, the MI5 case officer actually knew Orwell's work and that "he does not hold with the Communist Party nor they with him.

He had difficulties publishing 'Animal Farm'

Financial and popular success eluded Orwell until Animal Farm , his allegorical look at the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. But despite the book's quality, in 1944 Orwell encountered trouble while trying to get it published. Some didn't seem to understand it: T.S. Eliot , a director of publisher Faber and Faber, noted, "Your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm." Victor Gollancz, who'd published much of Orwell's earlier work, was loath to criticize the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin .

Publisher Jonathan Cape almost took on the book, but the Ministry of Information advised against antagonizing the Soviet Union, an ally in World War II (however, the official who gave this warning was later discovered to be a Soviet spy). With rejections accumulating, Orwell even considered self-publishing before Animal Farm was accepted by Fredric Warburg's small press. The success that followed the book's 1945 release probably had some publishers regretting their earlier refusals.

Ernest Hemingway gave him a gun

During the Spanish Civil War, Stalinists turned on POUM, the left-wing group Orwell fought with. This led to POUM members being arrested, tortured and even killed. Orwell escaped Spain before he was taken into custody — but when he traveled to Paris in 1945 to work as a correspondent, he felt he could still be in danger from Communists who were targeting their enemies.

A gun could offer protection, but as a civilian Orwell couldn't easily acquire one. His solution was to turn to Ernest Hemingway . Orwell visited Hemingway at the Ritz and explained his fears. Hemingway, who admired Orwell's writing, handed over a Colt .32. It's unknown if Orwell ever had to use the weapon.

He was friends with Aldous Huxley

Before Orwell wrote 1984 (1949) and Aldous Huxley penned Brave New World (1932), the two met at Eton, where Huxley taught French. While some students took advantage of and mocked Huxley's poor eyesight, Orwell reportedly stood up for him and enjoyed having Huxley as a teacher.

Orwell and Huxley also read each other's most famous work. Writing in Time and Tide in 1940, Orwell called Brave New World "a good caricature of the hedonistic Utopia" but said "it had no relation to the actual future," which he envisaged as "something more like the Spanish Inquisition." In 1949, Huxley sent Orwell a letter with his take on 1984. Though he admired it, he felt "the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience."

He sent the government a list of people he thought were communist sympathizers

On May 2, 1949, Orwell sent a list of names to a friend at the Foreign Office whose job was to fight Soviet propaganda. The 35 names were people he suspected of being communist sympathizers. Orwell noted in his letter, ''It isn't a bad idea to have the people who are probably unreliable listed." He also wrote, "Even as it stands I imagine that this list is very libelous, or slanderous, or whatever the term is, so will you please see that it is returned to me without fail."

Orwell wanted Britain to survive the threat of totalitarianism, and almost certainly felt he was helping that cause. However, it's still surprising that the man who came up with the concept of Big Brother felt comfortable providing the government with a list of suspect names.

He died from tuberculosis

When Orwell's tuberculosis worsened in the 1940s, a cure existed: the antibiotic streptomycin, which had been on in the market in America since 1946. However, streptomycin wasn't readily available in post-war Great Britain.

Given his connections and success, Orwell was able to obtain the drug in 1948 but experienced a severe allergic reaction to it: hair falling out, disintegrating nails and painful throat ulcerations, among other symptoms. His doctors, new to the drug, didn't know a lower dosage likely could have saved him without the horrible side effects; instead, Orwell ceased treatment (the remainder was given to two other TB patients, who recovered). He tried streptomycin once more in 1949 but still couldn't tolerate it. Orwell succumbed to TB on January 21, 1950.

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13 Surprising Facts About George Orwell

By emily petsko | jan 21, 2022, 8:00 am est.

Before he assumed the pen name George Orwell, Eric Arthur Blair (June 25, 1903-January 21, 1950) had a relatively normal upbringing for an upper-middle-class English boy of his time. Looking back now, his life proved to be anything but ordinary. He's best known for penning the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four —regarded as one of the greatest classics of all time—but writing novels was only one small facet of his life and career. Here are 13 facts about Orwell’s life that may surprise you.

1. George Orwell attended prep school as a child—and hated it.

Eric Blair spent five years at the St. Cyprian School for boys in Eastbourne, England, which later inspired his melodramatic essay Such, Such Were the Joys . In this account, he called the school’s proprietors “terrible, all-powerful monsters” and labeled the institution itself "an expensive and snobbish school which was in process of becoming more snobbish, and, I imagine, more expensive." While Blair's misery is now considered to be somewhat exaggerated , the essay was deemed too libelous to print at the time. It was finally published in 1968 after his death.

2. He was a prankster.

Blair was expelled from his "crammer" school (an institution designed to help students "cram" for specific exams) for sending a birthday message attached to a dead rat to the town surveyor, according to Sir Bernard Crick's George Orwell: A Life , the first complete biography of Orwell. And while studying at Eton College, Orwell made up a song about John Crace, his school’s housemaster, in which he made fun of Crace’s appearance and penchant for Italian art:

"Then up waddled Wog and he squeaked in Greek: ‘I’ve grown another hair on my cheek.’ Crace replied in Latin with his toadlike smile: ‘And I hope you’ve grown a lovely new pile. With a loud deep fart from the bottom of my heart! How d’you like Venetian art?'"

Later, in a newspaper column , he recalled his boyhood hobby of replying to advertisements and stringing the salesmen along as a joke. “You can have a lot of fun by answering the advertisements and then, when you have drawn them out and made them waste a lot of stamps in sending successive wads of testimonials, suddenly leaving them cold,” he wrote.

3. Orwell worked a number of odd jobs for most of his career.

Everyone’s got to pay the bills, and Blair was no exception. He spent most of his career juggling part-time jobs while authoring books on the side. Over the years, he worked as a police officer for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma (present-day Myanmar), a high school teacher, a bookstore clerk, a propagandist for the BBC during World War II, a literary editor, and a war correspondent. He also had stints as a dishwasher in Paris and as a hop-picker (for breweries) in Kent, England, but those jobs were for research purposes while “living as a tramp” and writing his first book about his experiences, Down and Out in Paris and London . (He chose to publish the book under a pseudonym, George Orwell, and the name stuck.)

4. He once got himself arrested—on purpose.

In 1931, while investigating poverty for his aforementioned memoir, Orwell intentionally got himself arrested for being “drunk and incapable.” This was done “in order to get a taste of prison and to bring himself closer to the tramps and small-time villains with whom he mingled,” biographer Gordon Bowker told The Guardian . At the time, he had been using the pseudonym Edward Burton and posing as a poor fish porter . After drinking several pints and almost a whole bottle of whisky and ostensibly making a scene (it’s uncertain what exactly was said or done), Orwell was arrested. His crime didn’t warrant prison time like he had hoped, and he was released after spending 48 hours in custody. He wrote about the experience in an unpublished essay titled Clink .

5. Orwell had knuckle tattoos.

While working as a police officer in Burma, Orwell got his knuckles tattooed. Adrian Fierz, who knew Orwell, told biographer Gordon Bowker that the tattoos were small blue spots, “the shape of small grapefruits,” and Orwell had one on each knuckle. Orwell noted that some Burmese tribes believed tattoos would protect them from bullets. He may have gotten inked for similarly superstitious reasons, Bowker suggested, but it's more likely that he wanted to set himself apart from the British establishment in Burma. "He was never a properly 'correct' member of the Imperial class—hobnobbing with Buddhist priests, Rangoon prostitutes, and British drop-outs," Bowker wrote.

6. He knew seven foreign languages, to varying degrees.

Orwell wrote in a 1944 newspaper column, “In my life I have learned seven foreign languages, including two dead ones, and out of those seven I retain only one, and that not brilliantly.” In his youth, he learned French from Aldous Huxley , who briefly taught at Orwell’s boarding school and later went on to write Brave New World . Orwell ultimately became fluent in French, and at different points in his life, he studied Latin, Greek, Spanish, and Burmese, to name a few.

7. He voluntarily fought in the Spanish Civil War.

Like fellow writer Ernest Hemingway and others with leftist leanings, Orwell got tangled up in the Spanish Civil War. At the age of 33, Orwell arrived in Spain, shortly after fighting had broken out in 1936, hoping to write some newspaper articles. Instead, he ended up joining the Republican militia to “ fight fascism ” because “it seemed the only conceivable thing to do.” The following year, he was shot in the neck  by a sniper, but survived. He described the moment of being shot as “a tremendous shock—no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shriveled up to nothing.” He wrote about his war experiences in the book Homage to Catalonia .

8. Orwell's manuscript for Animal Farm was nearly destroyed by a bomb.

In 1944, Orwell’s home at 10 Mortimer Crescent in London was struck by a “ doodlebug ” (a German V-1 flying bomb). Orwell, his wife Eileen, and their son Richard Horatio were away at the time, but their home was demolished. During his lunch break at the British newspaper Tribune , Orwell would return to the foundation where his home once stood and sift through the rubble in search of his books and papers—most importantly, the manuscript for Animal Farm . “He spent hours and hours rifling through rubbish. Fortunately, he found it,” Richard recalled in a 2012 interview with Ham & High . Orwell then piled everything into a wheelbarrow and carted it back to his office.

9. He had a goat named Muriel.

He and his wife Eileen tended to several farm animals at their home in Wallington, England, including Muriel the goat. A goat by the same name in Orwell’s book Animal Farm is described as being one of the few intelligent and morally sound animals on the farm, making her one of the more likable characters in this dark work of dystopian fiction.

10. George Orwell coined the term Cold War .

The first recorded usage of the phrase cold war  in reference to relations between the U.S. and Soviet Union can be traced back to Orwell’s 1945 essay You and the Atom Bomb , which was written two months after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the essay, he described “a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of ‘cold war’ with its neighbors.” He continued:

“Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock, it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly centralized police state. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a ‘peace that is no peace.’”

11. He ratted out Charlie Chaplin and other artists for allegedly being communists.

Orwell self-identified as a democratic socialist, but his sympathy didn’t extend to communists. In 1949, he compiled a list of artists he suspected of having communist leanings and passed it along to his friend, Celia Paget, who worked for the UK’s Information Research Department. After the war ended, the branch was tasked with distributing anti-communist propaganda throughout Europe. Orwell's list included Charlie Chaplin and a few dozen other actors, writers, academics, and politicians. Other notable names that were written down in his notebook but weren’t turned over to the IRD included Katharine Hepburn, John Steinbeck , George Bernard Shaw, Orson Welles , and Cecil Day-Lewis (the father of Daniel Day-Lewis).

Orwell’s intention was to blacklist those individuals, whom he considered untrustworthy, from IRD employment. While journalist Alexander Cockburn labeled Orwell a “snitch,” biographer Bernard Crick wrote, “He wasn’t denouncing these people as subversives. He was denouncing them as unsuitable for counter-intelligence operation.”

12. He really hated American fashion magazines.

For a period of about a year and a half, Orwell penned a regular column called As I Please for the newspaper Tribune , in which he shared his thoughts on everything from war to objective truth to literary criticism. One such column from 1946 featured a brutal takedown of American fashion magazines. Of the models appearing on their pages, he wrote, “A thin-boned, ancient-Egyptian type of face seems to predominate: narrow hips are general, and slender, non-prehensile hands like those of a lizard are quite universal.”

As for the inane copy that accompanied advertisements, he complained:

"Words like suave-mannered, custom-finished, contour-conforming, mitt-back, inner-sole, backdip, midriff, swoosh, swash, curvaceous, slenderize, and pet-smooth are flung about with evident full expectation that the reader will understand them at a glance. Here are a few sample sentences taken at random: 'A new Shimmer Sheen color that sets your hands and his head in a whirl.' 'Bared and beautifully bosomy.' 'Feathery-light Milliken Fleece to keep her kitten-snug!' 'Others see you through a veil of sheer beauty, and they wonder why!'"

In the rest of the column, he went on to discuss traffic fatalities.

13. He nearly drowned while writing Nineteen Eighty-Four .

One day in 1947 while taking a break from writing Nineteen Eighty-Four , Orwell took his son, niece, and nephew on a boating trip across the Gulf of Corryvreckan in western Scotland, which happens to be the site of the world's third-largest whirlpool. Unsurprisingly, their dinghy capsized when it was sucked into the whirlpool , hurling them all overboard. Fortunately, all four survived, and the book that later came to be called Nineteen Eighty-Four (originally named The Last Man in Europe ) was finally published in 1949, just seven months before Orwell's death from tuberculosis.

A version of this story ran in 2018; it has been updated for 2022.

A Biography of George Orwell

Jul 19, 2014

1.74k likes | 4.51k Views

A Biography of George Orwell. “Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.”. Real Name—Eric Arthur Blair. Lived 1903-1950 Born in India Moved to England as a small child

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A Biography of George Orwell “Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.”

Real Name—Eric Arthur Blair • Lived 1903-1950 • Born in India • Moved to England as a small child • His childhood dream: “From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer.” • His pen name: George “sounds solidly English” and Orwell is the name of “a river in Suffolk, England”

Orwell’s Education • Attended expensive preparatory schools in England • Grew up “lower-upper-middle class” • “Felt inferior to upper class boys at school”

Life After School • Served in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police • Quit because he hated the prejudice • “I hate violence and don’t believe in politics; the only major remedy remaining is education.” • “I could not go on any longer serving an imperialism which I had come to regard as . . .a racket.”

Chose to live in poverty Worked as a dishwasher Wrote Down and Out in Paris and London Exposed harsh working conditions of the poor Investigated England’s coal-mining industry Wrote The Road to Wigan Pier Exposed terrible conditions of the miners Career Path

Effects of These Jobs • Grew to hate a “class system” • Became a socialist • Socialism • All goods in a country are shared with others • No one has more than others "The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism…is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all."

Writing wasn’t paying the bills Other jobs: 1. Teacher 2. Grocer 3. Bookshop assistant 4. BBC writer Fought in Spanish Civil War against communists Shot in the throat in battle Wrote about this war Homage to Catalonia To Make Ends Meet

Married in 1936 Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1938 Adopted son in 1944 Wife died in 1946 Remarried in 1950 (three months before his own death) Personal Life

Most Famous Works • Animal Farm • Published in 1945 • Wrote it “to expose [Joseph] Stalin’s perversion of socialism” • Fusion of “political and artistic purpose” • Immediate commercial ($) success • Quickly translated into many languages

Most Famous Works • 1984 • Published in 1949 • His final novel • Grim vision of future society • “Big Brother” is watching/controlling all • Considered his master-piece

Final Thoughts • Suffered a tubercular hemorrhage (lung bleed) • Died in 1950 at age of 46 • “I felt that I had got to escape not merely from imperialism but from every form of man’s dominion over man. I wanted to submerge myself, to get right down among the oppressed, to be one of them and on their side against their tyrants.” • “Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist or understand.”

Works Cited Cover of Novel Animal Farm. 12 Oct. 2006 <http://217.207.178.138/cgibin/bridgemanImage.cgi/ 400wm.HBC.2771420.7055475>. Cover of Novel 1984. 12 Oct. 2006 <http://pictures.abebooks.com/IDLERBOOKS/md/md229616146.jpg>. Ershler, Norman. The Orwell Reader. 1995. Nov. 2005 <http://www.theorwell reader.com>. George Orwell’s BBC Union Card. 12 Oct. 2006 <http://www.netcharles.com/ 1-george-orwell.jpg>. George Orwell’s Gravesite. 12 Oct. 2006 <http://www.zardoz.net/orwell/110-Headstone.eighth.jpg>. George Orwell’s Older Face. 12 Oct. 2006 <http://www.george-orwell.org/ ~sub/images/george-orwell-5.jpg>. George Orwell’s Younger Face. 12 Oct. 2006 <http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/orwell.jpg>. Sammis, Kathy. Perma-Guides to Literature. Jacksonville, Illinios: Perma-Bound Books, 1992. Stewart, Garrett. "Orwell, George." World Book Online Reference Center. 2007. Mountain Pointe High School, Phoenix, AZ.  18 Oct. 2007 <http://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Article?id=ar406780>.

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Resources you can trust

Introductory presentation

A PowerPoint resource with information about 1984 by George Orwell. The slides include details about George Orwell, the context in which 1984 was written, the setting, characters and first impressions of Chapter 1. 

This resource would work well as a pre-reading activity. 

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• Preferences

A Biography of George Orwell By Mrs' Rafalski - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

A Biography of George Orwell By Mrs' Rafalski

12 oct. 2006 http://pictures.abebooks.com/idlerbooks/md/md229616146.jpg . ershler, norman. ... illinios: perma-bound books, 1992. stewart, garrett. ' orwell, ... – powerpoint ppt presentation.

• Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
• Lived 1903-1950
• Born in India
• Moved to England as a small child
• His childhood dream From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer.
• His pen name George sounds solidly English and Orwell is the name of a river in Suffolk, England
• Attended expensive preparatory schools in England
• Grew up lower-upper-middle class
• Felt inferior to upper class boys at school
• Served in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police
• Quit because he hated the racism
• I hate violence and dont believe in politics the only major remedy remaining is education.
• Chose to live in poverty
• Worked as a dishwasher
• Wrote Down and Out in Paris and London
• Exposed harsh working conditions of the poor
• Investigated Englands coal-mining industry
• Wrote The Road to Wigan Pier
• Exposed terrible conditions of the miners
• Grew to hate a class system
• Became a socialist
• All goods in a country are shared with others
• No one has more than others
• For example, You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
• Writing wasnt paying the bills
• 3. Bookshop
• 4. BBC writer
• Fought in Spanish Civil War against communists
• Shot in the throat in battle
• Wrote about this war
• Homage to Catalonia
• Married in 1936
• Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1938
• Adopted son in 1944
• Wife died in 1946
• Remarried in 1950 (three months before his own death)
• Animal Farm
• Published in 1945
• Wrote it to expose Joseph Stalins perversion of socialism
• Fusion of political and artistic purpose
• Immediate commercial () success
• Quickly translated into many languages
• Published in 1949
• His final novel
• Grim vision of future society
• Big Brother is watching/controlling all
• Considered a masterpiece
• Suffered a tubercular hemorrhage (lung bleed)
• Died in 1950 at age of 46
• Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist or understand.
• Cover of Novel Animal Farm. 12 Oct. 2006 lthttp//217.207.178.138/cgibin/bridgemanImage.cgi/
• 400wm.HBC.2771420.7055475gt.
• Cover of Novel 1984. 12 Oct. 2006 lthttp//pictures.abebooks.com/IDLERBOOKS/md/md2296 16146.jpggt.
• Ershler, Norman. The Orwell Reader. 1995. Nov. 2005 lthttp//www.theorwell reader.comgt.
• George Orwells BBC Union Card. 12 Oct. 2006 lthttp//www.netcharles.com/ 1-george-orwell.jpggt.
• George Orwells Gravesite. 12 Oct. 2006 lthttp//www.zardoz.net/orwell/110-Headstone.eighth .jpggt.
• George Orwells Older Face. 12 Oct. 2006 lthttp//www.george-orwell.org/ sub/images/george- orwell-5.jpggt.
• George Orwells Younger Face. 12 Oct. 2006 lthttp//etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/geo rge/orwell.jpggt.
• Sammis, Kathy. Perma-Guides to Literature. Jacksonville, Illinios Perma-Bound Books, 1992.
• Stewart, Garrett. "Orwell, George." World Book Online Reference Center. 2007. Mountain Pointe High School, Phoenix,

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