View source for George Orwell

{{Short description|English author and journalist (1903–1950)}}
{{redirect|Orwell}}
{{redirect |Eric Blair|the politician|Eric Blair (Ontario politician)}}
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{{Infobox person
| name               = George Orwell
| image              = George Orwell press photo.jpg
| alt                = Photograph of the head and shoulders of a middle-aged man, with black hair and a slim mustache
| caption            = [[Press card]] portrait, 1943
| birth_name         = Eric Arthur Blair
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1903|6|25|df=yes}}
| birth_place        = [[Motihari]], [[Bengal Presidency]], India
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1950|1|21|1903|6|25|df=yes}}
| death_place        = London, England
| burial_place       = [[All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay]], Oxfordshire, England
| occupation         = {{cslist|Novelist|essayist|journalist|[[literary critic]]}}
| education          = [[Eton College]]
| spouse             = {{ubl|{{marriage|[[Eileen O'Shaughnessy]]|1936|1945|end=died}}|{{marriage|[[Sonia Brownell]]|1949}}}}
| children           = [[Richard Blair (patron)|Richard Blair]] (adopted)
| signature          = Orwell-Signature.svg
| signature_alt      = Eric Blair ("George Orwell")
| party              = [[Independent Labour Party|Independent Labour]] (from 1938)
| module             = {{Infobox writer
| embed         = yes
| pseudonym     = George Orwell
| language      = English
| years_active  = 1928–1949<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/24/george-orwell-britain-in-2013|title=What would George Orwell have made of the world in 2013?|author=Jeffries, Stuart|website=The Guardian|date=24 January 2013|access-date=3 March 2024}}</ref>
| genre         = {{cslist|[[Dystopia]]|''[[roman à clef]]''|satire|[[literary criticism]]|[[polemic]]|[[opinion journalism]]}}
| subjects      = {{cslist|[[Anti-fascism]]|[[anti-Stalinism]]|[[anarchism]]|[[democratic socialism]]}}
| notable_works = {{unbulleted list|''[[Down and Out in Paris and London]]'' (1933)|''[[The Road to Wigan Pier]]'' (1937)|''[[Homage to Catalonia]]'' (1938)|''[[Animal Farm]]'' (1945)|''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' (1949)}}
}}
}}
	
'''Eric Arthur Blair''' (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the [[pen name]] of '''George Orwell'''. His work is characterised by lucid [[prose]], [[social criticism]], opposition to all [[totalitarianism]] (both [[authoritarian communism]] and [[fascism]]), and support of [[democratic socialism]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gale |first1=Steven H. |title=Encyclopedia of British Humorists: Geoffrey Chaucer to John Cleese, Volume 1 |date=1996 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |page=823}}</ref><ref name="thinktank"/>

Orwell is best known for his [[allegorical]] novella ''[[Animal Farm]]'' (1945) and the [[Utopian and dystopian fiction|dystopian]] novel ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' (1949), although his works also encompass [[literary criticism]], poetry, fiction and [[polemic]]al journalism. His non-fiction works, including ''[[The Road to Wigan Pier]]'' (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in industrial [[Northern England]], and ''[[Homage to Catalonia]]'' (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the [[Republican faction (Spanish Civil War)|Republican faction]] of the [[Spanish Civil War]] (1936–1939), are as critically respected as [[George Orwell bibliography|his essays]] on politics, literature, [[language]] and culture.

Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in [[political culture]], and the adjective "[[Orwellian]]"—<!--please do not change definition of "Orwellian" without first discussing on talk page-->describing totalitarian and [[authoritarian]] social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his [[neologism]]s, such as "[[Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)|Big Brother]]", "[[Thought Police]]", "[[Room 101]]", "[[Newspeak]]", "[[memory hole]]", "[[doublethink]]", and "[[thoughtcrime]]".<ref name=":1">{{cite news|last=McCrum|first=Robert|author-link=Robert McCrum| url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/10/1984-george-orwell|title=The masterpiece that killed George Orwell|work=The Observer|date=10 May 2009|access-date=6 January 2025}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{cite web|url=http://www.oed.com/search?f_0=Quotation+Author&scope=QUOTATION&fq_entry=true&q_0=G.+Orwell|title=Quotations: G. Orwell|work= Oxford English Dictionary|access-date=2 September 2017}}</ref> In 2008, ''[[The Times]]'' named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.<ref>{{cite news |date=5 January 2008 |title=The 50 greatest British writers since 1945 |work=[[The Times]] |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/article2452094.ece |access-date=7 January 2014}}</ref>

==Biography==

===Early years===
[[File:Birth-Place-George-Orwell-Motihari.jpg|thumb|Orwell's birthplace in [[Motihari]], [[Bihar]], India]]

Eric Arthur Blair was born on 25 June 1903 in [[Motihari]], Bengal Presidency (now [[Bihar]]), [[British Raj|British India]], into what he described as a "[[Middle class|lower-upper-middle class]]" family.<ref name="ODNB">{{Cite book |last=Crick |first=Bernard |author-link=Bernard Crick |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=Oxford |year=2004 |chapter=Eric Arthur Blair [''pseud.'' George Orwell] (1903–1950)}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Road to Wigan Pier |page=1 |chapter=8 |date=1937 |last=Orwell |first=George |publisher=[[Left Book Club]]}}</ref> His great-great-grandfather Charles Blair was a wealthy slave-owning [[Landed gentry|country gentleman]] and [[Absentee landlord|absentee owner]] of two [[List of plantations in Jamaica|Jamaican plantations]];<ref name="LBS Charles Blair">{{cite web |title=Legacies of British Slavery |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146636746 |website=Legacies of British Slavery |publisher=University College London |access-date=28 April 2024}}</ref> hailing from [[Dorset]], he married Lady Mary Fane, daughter of [[Thomas Fane, 8th Earl of Westmorland]].<ref name="Stansky">{{Cite book|first1=Peter|last1=Stansky|author-link=Peter Stansky|first2=William|last2=Abrahams|title=The Unknown Orwell and Orwell: The Transformation|publisher=[[Stanford University Press]]|location=[[Stanford, California]]|year=1994|pages=[https://archive.org/details/unknownorwellorw00stan/page/5 5–12]|chapter=From Bengal to St Cyprian's|isbn=978-0804723428 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/unknownorwellorw00stan|url=https://archive.org/details/unknownorwellorw00stan/page/5}}</ref> His grandfather Thomas Richard Arthur Blair was an [[Church of England|Anglican]] clergyman. Orwell's father was Richard Walmesley Blair, who worked as a Sub-Deputy Opium Agent in the [[Royal Commission on Opium#History|Opium Department]] of the [[Indian Civil Service]], overseeing the production and storage of [[opium]] for sale to China.<ref name="Taylor">{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=D.J. |title=Orwell: The Life |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |year=2003 |isbn=978-0805074734 |url=https://archive.org/details/orwelllife00tayl}}; {{Cite web |last=Chowdhury |first=Amlan |title=George Orwell's Birthplace in Motihari to Turn Museum |url=https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/newsdetail/index/9/15774/george-orwells-birthplace-in-motihari-to-turn-museum |access-date=26 February 2022 |website=www.thecitizen.in |date=16 December 2018 |language=en-US}}; {{Cite news |last1=Haleem |first1=Suhail |date=11 August 2014 |newspaper=BBC News |title=The Indian Animal Farm where Orwell was born |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28739420}}; {{Cite web |date=14 August 2014 |access-date=2 February 2023 |title=Arena News Week: Frank Maloney, George Orwell Museum and Giant Panda Tian Tian |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/arena/entries/fb151770-ff16-39a5-b426-f0e7904fa31e |website=BBC |language=en}}; {{Cite web |last=Rahman |first=Maseeh |date=30 June 2014 |title=George Orwell's birthplace in India set to become a museum |website=[[TheGuardian.com]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/30/george-orwell-birthplace-motihari-bihar-india-museum}}</ref> Orwell's mother, Ida Mabel Blair (''née'' Limouzin), grew up in [[Moulmein]], Burma, where her French father was involved in speculative ventures.<ref name="Stansky" /> Eric had two sisters: Marjorie, five years older; and Avril, five years younger. When Eric was one year old, his mother took him and Marjorie to England.<ref name="crick48">Crick (1982), p. 48</ref>{{refn|Stansky and Abrahams suggested that Ida Blair moved to England in 1907, based on information given by her daughter Avril, talking about a time before she was born. This is contrasted by Ida Blair's 1905, as well as a photograph of Eric, aged three, in an English suburban garden.<ref name=crick48/> The earlier date coincides with a difficult posting for Blair senior, and the need to start their daughter Marjorie (then six years old) in an English education.|group= n}} In 2014 restoration work began on Orwell's birthplace and ancestral house in Motihari.<ref>{{cite web|title=Renovation of British Author George Orwell's house in Motihari begins|url=http://news.biharprabha.com/2014/06/renovation-of-british-author-george-orwells-house-in-motihari-begins/|work=IANS|publisher=news.biharprabha.com|access-date=26 June 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140629044724/http://news.biharprabha.com/2014/06/renovation-of-british-author-george-orwells-house-in-motihari-begins/|archive-date=29 June 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[File:ShiplakeBlairHome01.JPG|alt=|thumb|left|Blair family home at [[Shiplake]], Oxfordshire]]
In 1904, Ida settled with her children at [[Henley-on-Thames]] in Oxfordshire. Eric was brought up in the company of his mother and sisters and, apart from a brief visit in mid-1907,<ref>A Kind of Compulsion 1903–36, xviii</ref> he did not see his father until 1912.<ref name=Taylor/> Aged five, Eric was sent as a day student to a [[Teaching order|convent school]] in Henley-on-Thames. It was a Catholic [[convent]] run by French [[Ursulines|Ursuline]] nuns.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Gordon |last=Bowker |title=George Orwell |page=21}}</ref> His mother wanted him to have a [[Public school (United Kingdom)|public school]] education, but his family could not afford it. Through the social connections of Ida's brother Charles Limouzin, Blair gained a scholarship to [[St Cyprian's School]] in [[Eastbourne]], East Sussex.<ref name=Taylor/> Arriving in September 1911, he boarded for the next five years, returning home only for holidays. Although he knew nothing of the reduced fees, he "soon recognised that he was from a poorer home".<ref>Bowker p. 30</ref> Blair hated the school<ref>{{Cite book |first=Alaric |last=Jacob |author-link=Alaric Jacob |chapter=Sharing Orwell's Joys, but not his Fears |editor-first=Christopher |editor-last=Norris |title=Inside the Myth |publisher=Lawrence and Wishart |year=1984}}</ref> and many years later wrote an essay "[[Such, Such Were the Joys]]", published posthumously, based on his time there. At St Cyprian's, Blair first met [[Cyril Connolly]], who became a writer and who, as the editor of ''[[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]]'', published several of Orwell's essays.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Literature in English |date=1996 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=517}}</ref>

{{Multiple image
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| caption1 = Blair's time at [[St Cyprian's School]] inspired his essay "[[Such, Such Were the Joys]]".
| caption2 = The essay recounts Blair hiking across the [[South Downs]] and bathing among the boulders at [[Beachy Head]] on the south coast of England.<ref>{{cite news |title=Such, Such Were The Joys |url=https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/joys/english/e_joys |access-date=9 June 2023 |website=Orwell.ru}}</ref>
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Before the [[First World War]], the family moved {{convert|2|mi|km|abbr=off|spell=on|0}} south to [[Shiplake]], Oxfordshire, where Eric became friendly with the Buddicom family, especially their daughter [[Jacintha Buddicom|Jacintha]]. When they first met, he was standing on his head in a field. Asked why, he said, "You are noticed more if you stand on your head than if you are right way up."<ref name="autogenerated1">{{Cite book |first=Jacintha |last=Buddicom |author-link=Jacintha Buddicom |title=Eric and Us |publisher=Frewin |year=1974 |isbn=978-0856320767 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/ericusremembranc0000budd }}</ref> Growing up together, Buddicom and Blair became idealistic adolescent sweethearts, reading and writing poetry together, and dreaming of becoming famous writers.<ref name="Times Media Limited">{{cite news |last1=Taylor |first1=D.J. |title=George Orwell: lost letter revealed |url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/2e21f026-326a-4639-90eb-0a607b4f31c0 |access-date=22 September 2024 |agency=The Times |publisher=Times Media Limited |date=17 April 2010}}</ref> Blair also enjoyed shooting, fishing and birdwatching with Jacintha's brother and sister.<ref name="autogenerated1"/>

While at St Cyprian's, Blair wrote two poems that were published in the ''[[Henley Standard|Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard]]''.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard |date=2 October 1914}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard |date=21 July 1916}}</ref> He came second to Connolly in the [[Harrow History Prize]], had his work praised by the school's external examiner, and earned scholarships to [[Wellington College, Berkshire|Wellington]] and [[Eton College|Eton]]. But inclusion on the Eton scholarship roll did not guarantee a place, and none was immediately available. He chose to stay at St Cyprian's until December 1916, in case a place at Eton became available.<ref name=Taylor/>

[[File:Awake! Young Men of England.jpg|thumb|left|upright=.9|First World War poem by 11-year-old Blair, "Awake! Young Men of England", published in 1914 in the ''[[Henley Standard|Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard]]'']]
In January, Blair took up the place at Wellington, where he spent the Spring term. In May 1917 a place became available as a [[King's Scholar]] at Eton. At this time the family lived at Mall Chambers, Notting Hill Gate. Blair remained at Eton until December 1921, when he left midway between his 18th and 19th birthdays. Wellington was "beastly", Blair told Jacintha, but he said he was "interested and happy" at Eton.<ref>Jacintha Buddicom, ''Eric and Us'', p. 58</ref> His principal tutor was [[A. S. F. Gow]], Fellow of [[Trinity College, Cambridge]], who gave him advice later in his career.<ref name=Taylor/> Blair was taught French by [[Aldous Huxley]]. [[Steven Runciman]], who was at Eton with Blair, noted that he and his contemporaries appreciated Huxley's linguistic flair.<ref name=Wadhams/>

Blair's performance reports suggest he neglected his studies,<ref name=Wadhams/> but he worked with [[R. A. B. Mynors|Roger Mynors]] to produce a college magazine, ''The Election Times'', joined in the production of other publications—''College Days'' and ''Bubble and Squeak''—and participated in the [[Eton Wall Game]]. His parents could not afford to send him to university without another scholarship, and they concluded from his poor results he would not be able to win one. Runciman noted he had a romantic idea about the [[Eastern world|East]],<ref name=Wadhams>{{Cite book |first=Stephen |last=Wadhams |title=Remembering Orwell |publisher=Penguin |year=1984}}</ref> and the family decided Blair should join the [[Imperial Police]], the precursor of the Indian Police Service. For this he had to pass an entrance examination. In December 1921, he left Eton and travelled to join his retired father, mother, and younger sister Avril, who that month had moved to 40 Stradbroke Road, [[Southwold]], Suffolk, the first of their four homes in the town.<ref name=Binns>{{Cite book |last=Binns|first=Ronald |title=Orwell in Southwold |publisher=Zoilus Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-1999735920}}</ref> Blair was enrolled at a [[crammer]] there called Craighurst, and brushed up on his Classics, English, and History. He passed the exam, coming seventh out of the 26 who passed.<ref name=Taylor/><ref>''A Kind of Compulsion'', p. 87, gives Blair as seventh of ''29'' successful candidates, and 21st of the 23 successful candidates who passed the Indian Imperial Police riding test, in September 1922.</ref>

===Policing in Burma===
[[File:OrwellBurmaPassport.jpg|alt=|thumb|upright|Blair pictured in a passport photograph in Burma. This was the last time he had a [[toothbrush moustache]]; he would later acquire a [[pencil moustache]] similar to other British officers stationed in Burma.]]

Blair's maternal grandmother lived at [[Mawlamyaing|Moulmein]], so he chose a posting in [[British rule in Burma|Burma]], then still a province of British India. In October 1922 he sailed on board SS ''Herefordshire'' to join the [[Indian Imperial Police]] in Burma. A month later, he arrived at [[Rangoon]] and travelled to the police training school in [[Mandalay]]. He was appointed an [[Assistant superintendent|Assistant District Superintendent]] (on probation) on 29 November 1922,<ref>{{cite book|page=514|title=The India Office and Burma Office List: 1927|publisher=Harrison & Sons, Ltd.|year=1927}}</ref> at the pay of [[Indian rupee|Rs.]] 525 per month.<ref>{{cite book|page=399|title=The Combined Civil List for India: January 1923|publisher=The Pioneer Press|year=1923}}</ref> After a short posting at [[Maymyo]], Burma's principal [[hill station]], he was posted to the frontier outpost of [[Myaungmya]] in the [[Irrawaddy Delta]] at the beginning of 1924.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Unknown Orwell: Orwell, the Transformation |date=1994 |publisher=Stanford University Press |page=176}}</ref>

Working as an imperial police officer gave him considerable responsibility while most of his contemporaries were still at university in England. When he was posted farther east in the Delta to [[Twante]] as a [[sub-divisional police officer]], he was responsible for the security of some 200,000 people. At the end of 1924, he was posted to [[Syriam]], closer to Rangoon. Syriam had the refinery of the [[Burmah Oil Company]], "the surrounding land a barren waste, all vegetation killed off by the fumes of [[sulphur dioxide]] pouring out day and night from the stacks of the refinery". But the town was near Rangoon, a cosmopolitan seaport, and Blair went into 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".<ref>Stansky & Abrahams, ''The Unknown Orwell'', pp.&nbsp;170–171.</ref> In September 1925 he went to [[Insein Township|Insein]], the home of [[Insein Prison]].<ref name=Shelden>Michael Shelden ''Orwell: The Authorised Biography'', William Heinemann, 1991.</ref> By this time, Blair had completed his training and was receiving a monthly salary of Rs.&nbsp;740, including allowances.<ref>{{cite book|page=409|title=The Combined Civil List for India: July–September 1925|publisher=The Pioneer Press|year=1925}}</ref>

Blair recalled he faced hostility from the Burmese, "in the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves". He recalled that "I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible".<ref>{{cite book |title=The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Volume 6: The Twentieth Century and Beyond |date=2006 |publisher=Broadview Press |page=546}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Orwell |first1=George |title=Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays |date=2009 |publisher=HMH |pages=29–30}}</ref>

[[File:KatharBritishClub.JPG|left|thumb|British Club in [[Katha, Myanmar]] ]]
In Burma, Blair acquired a reputation as an outsider. He spent much of his time alone, reading or pursuing non-''[[Pukka sahib|pukka]]'' activities, such as attending the churches of the [[Karen people|Karen]] ethnic group. A colleague, Roger Beadon, recalled that Blair was fast to learn the language and that before he left Burma, "was able to speak fluently with Burmese priests in 'very high-flown Burmese{{'"}}.<ref>''A Kind of Compulsion, 1903–36'', p.&nbsp;87.</ref> Blair made changes to his appearance in Burma that remained for the rest of his life, including adopting a [[pencil moustache]]. [[Emma Larkin]] writes in the introduction to ''Burmese Days'':<ref>[[Emma Larkin]], Introduction, ''Burmese Days'', Penguin Classics edition, 2009.</ref>
<blockquote>
While in Burma, he acquired a moustache similar to those worn by officers of the British regiments stationed there. [He] also acquired some tattoos; on each knuckle he had a small untidy blue circle. Many Burmese living in rural areas still sport tattoos like this—they are believed to protect against bullets and snake bites.
</blockquote>

In April 1926 he moved to Moulmein, where his maternal grandmother lived. At the end of that year, he was assigned to [[Katha, Myanmar|Katha]] in [[Upper Burma]], where he contracted [[dengue fever]] in 1927. Entitled to a [[leave (military)|leave]] in England that year, he was allowed to return in July due to his illness. While on holiday with his family in [[Cornwall]] in September 1927, he reappraised his life. Deciding against returning to Burma, he resigned from the Indian Imperial Police to become a writer, with effect from 12 March 1928.<ref>{{cite book|page=894|title=The India Office and Burma Office List: 1929|publisher=Harrison & Sons, Ltd.|year=1929}}</ref> He drew on his experiences in the Burma police for the novel ''[[Burmese Days]]'' (1934) and the essays "[[A Hanging]]" (1931) and "[[Shooting an Elephant]]" (1936).<ref>{{cite news |title=Exploring Burma Through George Orwell |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4761169&t=1610634531933 |access-date=14 January 2021 |agency=NPR}}</ref>

===London and Paris===
[[File:George_Orwell's_Home,_Notting_Hill,_London.jpg|thumb|The blue house on the right was Blair's 1927 lodgings in [[Portobello Road]], London.]]
In England, he settled back in the family home at [[Southwold]], renewing acquaintance with local friends and attending an [[Old Etonian]] dinner. He visited his old tutor Gow at Cambridge for advice on becoming a writer.<ref>Crick (1982), p. 122</ref> In 1927 he moved to London.<ref>Stansky & Abrahams, ''The Unknown Orwell'', p. 195</ref> [[Ruth Pitter]], a family acquaintance, helped him find lodgings, and by the end of 1927 he had moved into rooms in [[Portobello Road]];<ref>Ruth Pitter ''BBC Overseas Service broadcast'', 3 January 1956</ref> a [[blue plaque]] commemorates his residence there.<ref>{{openplaque|2825}}</ref> Pitter's involvement in the move "would have lent it a reassuring respectability in Mrs. Blair's eyes". Pitter had a sympathetic interest in Blair's writing, pointed out weaknesses in his poetry, and advised him to write about what he knew. In fact he decided to write of "certain aspects of the present that he set out to know" and ventured into the [[East End of London]]—the first of the occasional sorties he would make intermittently over a period of five years to discover the world of poverty and the down-and-outers who inhabit it.<ref>Stansky & Abrahams, ''The Unknown Orwell'', p. 204</ref>

In imitation of [[Jack London]], whose writing he admired (particularly ''[[The People of the Abyss]]''), Blair started to explore the poorer parts of London. On his first outing he set out to [[Limehouse Causeway]], spending his first night in a common lodging house, possibly George Levy's "kip". For a while he "went native" in his own country, dressing like a [[tramp]], adopting the name P.S. Burton; he recorded his experiences of the low life for use in "[[The Spike (essay)|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).<ref>{{cite news |title=Orwell's take on destitution, live from Paris and London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/28/george-orwell-down-out-london-paris-live-performance|access-date=16 November 2021 |work=The Guardian}}</ref>
[[File:Rue du Pot-de-Fer.JPG|left|thumb|upright|Rue du Pot de Fer on the [[Rive Gauche (Paris)|Left Bank]] in the [[5th arrondissement of Paris|5th arrondissement]], where Blair lived in Paris]]

In early 1928 he moved to Paris. He lived in the rue du Pot de Fer, a working class district in the [[5th arrondissement of Paris|5th arrondissement]].<ref name=Taylor/> His aunt [[Ellen Kate Limouzin|Ellen (Nellie) Kate Limouzin]] also lived in Paris (with the [[Esperanto|Esperantist]] [[Eugène Lanti]]) and gave him social and, when necessary, financial support. He began to write novels, including an early version of ''Burmese Days'', but nothing else survives from that period.<ref name=Taylor/> He was more successful as a journalist and published articles in ''[[Monde (review)|Monde]]'', a political/literary journal edited by [[Henri Barbusse]] (his first article as a professional writer, "La Censure en Angleterre", appeared in that journal on 6 October 1928); ''[[G. K.'s Weekly]]'', where his first article to appear in England, "A Farthing Newspaper", was printed on 29 December 1928;<ref>''A Kind of Compulsion'' (1903–36), p. 113</ref> and ''Le Progrès Civique'' (founded by the left-wing coalition [[Cartel des Gauches|Le Cartel des Gauches]]). Three pieces appeared in successive weeks in ''Le Progrès Civique'': discussing unemployment, a day in the life of a tramp, and the beggars of London, respectively. "In one or another of its destructive forms, poverty was to become his obsessive subject—at the heart of almost everything he wrote until ''[[Homage to Catalonia]]''."<ref>Stansky & Abrahams, ''The Unknown Orwell'', p. 216</ref>

He fell seriously ill in February 1929 and was taken to the [[Hôpital Cochin]], a free hospital where medical students were trained. His experiences there were the basis of his essay "[[How the Poor Die]]", published in 1946 (though he chose not to identify the hospital). Shortly afterwards, he had all his money stolen from his lodging house. Whether through necessity or to collect material, he undertook menial jobs such as dishwashing in a fashionable hotel on the [[rue de Rivoli]], which he later described in ''Down and Out in Paris and London''. In August 1929, he sent a copy of "[[The Spike (essay)|The Spike]]" to [[John Middleton Murry]]'s ''[[Adelphi (magazine)|New Adelphi]]'' magazine in London. The magazine was edited by [[Max Plowman]] and [[Sir Richard Rees, 2nd Baronet|Sir Richard Rees]], and Plowman accepted the work for publication.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Marks |first1=Peter |title=George Orwell the Essayist: Literature, Politics and the Periodical Culture |date=2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |page=28}}</ref>

===Southwold===

[[File:SouthwoldPier.JPG|thumb|right|[[Southwold Pier]] in [[Southwold]]. Orwell wrote ''[[A Clergyman's Daughter]]'' (1935) in the town, basing the fictional town of Knype Hill partly on Southwold.]]

In December 1929, after nearly two years in Paris, Blair returned to England and went directly to his parents' house in [[Southwold]], a coastal town in [[Suffolk]], which remained his base for the next five years. The family was well established in the town, where his sister Avril ran a tea-house. He became acquainted with many local people, including Brenda Salkeld, the clergyman's daughter who worked as a gym-teacher at [[Saint Felix School|St Felix Girls' School]]. Although Salkeld rejected his offer of marriage, she remained a friend and regular correspondent for many years. He also renewed friendships with older friends, such as Dennis Collings, whose girlfriend Eleanor Jacques was also to play a part in his life.<ref name=Taylor/>

In early 1930 he stayed briefly in [[Bramley, Leeds]], with his sister Marjorie and her husband Humphrey Dakin. Blair was writing reviews for ''Adelphi'' and acting as a private tutor to a disabled child at Southwold. He then became tutor to three young brothers, one of whom, [[Richard Stanley Peters|Richard Peters]], later became a distinguished academic.<ref>R.S. Peters (1974). ''A Boy's View of George Orwell'' Psychology and Ethical Development. Allen & Unwin</ref> <blockquote>His history in these years is marked by dualities and contrasts. There is Blair leading a respectable, outwardly eventless life at his parents' house in Southwold, writing; then in contrast, there is Blair as Burton (the name he used in his down-and-out episodes) in search of experience in the kips and spikes, in the East End, on the road, and in the hop fields of Kent.<ref>Stansky & Abrahams, p. 230 ''The Unknown Orwell''</ref></blockquote> He went painting and bathing on the beach, and there he met Mabel and Francis Fierz, who later influenced his career. Over the next year he visited them in London, often meeting their friend Max Plowman. He also often stayed at the homes of Ruth Pitter and Richard Rees, where he could "change" for his sporadic tramping expeditions. One of his jobs was domestic work at a lodgings for [[half crown (British coin)|half a crown]] (two shillings and sixpence, or one-eighth of a pound) a day.<ref name="autogenerated1996">Stella Judt "I once met George Orwell" in ''I once Met'' 1996</ref>

Blair now contributed regularly to ''Adelphi'', with "[[A Hanging]]" appearing in August 1931. From August to September 1931 his explorations of poverty continued, and, like the protagonist of ''[[A Clergyman's Daughter]]'', he followed the [[East End]] tradition of working in the Kent [[Hops|hop]] fields. He kept a diary about his experiences there. Afterwards, he lodged in the [[Tooley Street#George Orwell|Tooley Street kip]], but could not stand it for long, and with financial help from his parents moved to Windsor Street, where he stayed until Christmas. "Hop Picking", by Eric Blair, appeared in the October 1931 issue of ''[[New Statesman]]'', whose editorial staff included his old friend Cyril Connolly. Mabel Fierz put him in contact with [[Leonard Moore (literary agent)|Leonard Moore]], who became his [[literary agent]] in April 1932.<ref>{{cite book |title=George Orwell: A Life in Letters |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_WE4AAAAQBAJ |editor=Davison, Peter |date=2013 |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company |page=494|isbn=978-0871404626 }}</ref>

At this time [[Jonathan Cape]] rejected ''A Scullion's Diary'', the first version of ''Down and Out''. On the advice of Richard Rees, he offered it to [[Faber & Faber]], but their editorial director, [[T. S. Eliot]], also rejected it. Blair ended the year by deliberately getting himself arrested,<ref name="Arrest">{{cite web|url=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1214/041214-orwell-court-record|title=Discovery of 'drunk and incapable' arrest record shows Orwell's 'honesty'|work=ucl.ac.uk|access-date=25 February 2015|date=4 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150106070123/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1214/041214-orwell-court-record/|archive-date=6 January 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> so that he could experience Christmas in prison, but after he was picked up and taken to [[Bethnal Green]] police station in the [[East End of London]] the authorities did not regard his "drunk and disorderly" behaviour as imprisonable, and after two days in a cell he returned home to Southwold.<ref name="Arrest"/>

===Teaching career===
<!-- Courtesy note: [[P. S. Burton]] links here. as {{R to section}} -->
In April 1932 Blair became a teacher at The Hawthorns High School, a school for boys, in [[Hayes, Hillingdon|Hayes]], west London. This was a small private school, and had only 14 or 16 boys aged between ten and sixteen, and one other master.<ref>Crick (1982), p. 221</ref> While at the school he became friendly with the curate of the local parish church and became involved with activities there. Mabel Fierz had pursued matters with Moore, and at the end of June 1932, Moore told Blair that [[Victor Gollancz]] was prepared to publish ''A Scullion's Diary'' for a £40 advance, through his recently founded publishing house, [[Victor Gollancz Ltd]], which was an outlet for radical and socialist works.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Wagner|first=David Paul|date=2019|title=Left Book Club|url=https://www.publishinghistory.com/left-book-club-victor-gollancz.html|website=Publishing History}}</ref>

At the end of the summer term in 1932, Blair returned to Southwold, where his parents had used a legacy to buy their own home. Blair and his sister Avril spent the holidays making the house habitable while he also worked on ''Burmese Days''.<ref>Avril Dunn ''My Brother George Orwell'' Twentieth Century 1961</ref> He was also spending time with Eleanor Jacques, but her attachment to Dennis Collings remained an obstacle to his hopes of a more serious relationship.

{{Multiple image
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| image2 = Ipswich and the Orwell Bridge - geograph.org.uk - 1716129.jpg
| caption1 = The pen name George Orwell was inspired by the [[River Orwell]] in the English county of Suffolk.<ref>Voorhees (1986: 11)</ref>
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"Clink", an essay describing his failed attempt to get sent to prison, appeared in the August 1932 number of ''Adelphi''. He returned to teaching at Hayes and prepared for the publication of his book, now known as ''Down and Out in Paris and London''. He wished to publish under a different name to avoid any embarrassment to his family over his time as a "tramp".<ref name="nybooks">{{cite magazine |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/may/26/intimate-orwell/?pagination=false |title=The Intimate Orwell |last=Leys |first=Simon |date=6 May 2011 |access-date=6 May 2011 |magazine=[[The New York Review of Books]]}}</ref> In a letter to Moore (dated 15 November 1932), he left the choice of pseudonym to Moore and to Gollancz. Four days later, he wrote to Moore, suggesting the pseudonyms P.S. Burton (a name he used when tramping), Kenneth Miles, George Orwell, and H. Lewis Allways.<ref>Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds.)''Orwell: An Age Like This'', letters 31 and 33 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World)</ref> He finally adopted the [[pen name]] George Orwell because "It is a good round English name."<ref>{{cite news|title=George Orwell: from Animal Farm to Zog, an A–Z of Orwell|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/5386673/George-Orwell-from-Animal-Farm-to-Zog-an-A-Z-of-Orwell.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/5386673/George-Orwell-from-Animal-Farm-to-Zog-an-A-Z-of-Orwell.html |archive-date=10 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|agency=The Telegraph|date=20 March 2018}}{{cbignore}}</ref> The name George was inspired by the [[Saint George|patron saint of England]], and Orwell after the [[River Orwell]] in Suffolk which was one of Orwell's favourite locations.<ref name="Down"/>

''Down and Out in Paris and London'' was published by Victor Gollancz in London on 9 January 1933 and received favourable reviews, with [[Cecil Day-Lewis]] complimenting Orwell's "clarity and good sense", and ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'' comparing Orwell's eccentric characters to the [[Charles Dickens#Characters|characters of Dickens]].<ref name="Down">{{cite book |last1=Brunsdale |first1=Mitzi |title=Student Companion to George Orwell |date=2000 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |pages=48–49, 64}}</ref> ''Down and Out'' was modestly successful and was next published by [[Harper (publisher)|Harper & Brothers]] in New York.<ref name="Down"/>

In mid-1933 Blair left Hawthorns to become a teacher at [[Frays River|Frays College]], in [[Uxbridge]], west London. This was a much larger establishment with 200 pupils and a full complement of staff. He acquired a motorcycle and took trips through the surrounding countryside. On one of these expeditions he became soaked and caught a chill that developed into pneumonia. He was taken to a [[cottage hospital]] in Uxbridge, where for a time his life was believed to be in danger. When he was discharged in January 1934, he returned to Southwold to convalesce and, supported by his parents, never returned to teaching.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Applegate |first1=Edd |title=Advocacy Journalists: A Biographical Dictionary of Writers and Editors |date=2009 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |page=151}}</ref>

He was disappointed when Gollancz turned down ''Burmese Days'', mainly on the grounds of potential suits for libel, but Harper were prepared to publish it in the United States. Meanwhile, Blair started work on the novel ''[[A Clergyman's Daughter]]'', drawing upon his life as a teacher and on life in Southwold. Eventually in October, after sending ''A Clergyman's Daughter'' to Moore, he left for London to take a job that had been found for him by his aunt Nellie Limouzin.<ref name="Down"/>

===Hampstead===

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| caption1          = Orwell's former home at 77 Parliament Hill, [[Hampstead]], London
| caption2          = His time as a bookseller is marked with this plaque in [[Pond Street, Hampstead|Pond Street]], Hampstead.
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This job was as a part-time assistant in Booklovers' Corner, a second-hand bookshop in Hampstead run by Francis and Myfanwy Westrope, who were friends of Nellie Limouzin in the [[Esperanto]] movement. The Westropes were friendly and provided him with comfortable accommodation at Warwick Mansions, [[Pond Street, Hampstead|Pond Street]]. He was sharing the job with [[Jon Kimche]], who also lived with the Westropes. Blair worked at the shop in the afternoons and had his mornings free to write and his evenings free to socialise. These experiences provided background for the novel ''[[Keep the Aspidistra Flying]]'' (1936). As well as the various guests of the Westropes, he was able to enjoy the company of Richard Rees and the ''Adelphi'' writers and Mabel Fierz. The Westropes and Kimche were members of the [[Independent Labour Party]], although at this time Blair was not seriously politically active. He was writing for the ''Adelphi'' and preparing ''A Clergyman's Daughter'' and ''Burmese Days'' for publication.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=16}}</ref>

[[File:GEORGE ORWELL 1903-1950 Novelist and Political Essayist lived here.jpg|thumb|upright|[[English Heritage]] [[blue plaque]] in [[Kentish Town]], London, where Orwell lived from August 1935 until January 1936]]
At the beginning of 1935 he had to move out of Warwick Mansions, and Mabel Fierz found him a flat in Parliament Hill. ''A Clergyman's Daughter'' was published on 11 March 1935. In 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]], invited some of her fellow students to a party. One of these students, Elizaveta Fen, recalled Blair and his friend [[Sir Richard Rees, 2nd Baronet|Richard Rees]] "draped" at the fireplace, looking, she thought, "moth-eaten and prematurely aged".<ref>Stansky & Abrahams, ''Orwell:The Transformation'' pp.&nbsp;100–101</ref> Around this time, Blair had started to write reviews for ''[[The New English Weekly]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=17}}</ref>

In June, ''Burmese Days'' was published and Cyril Connolly's positive review in the ''New Statesman'' prompted Blair to re-establish contact with his old friend. In August, he moved into a flat, at 50 Lawford Road, [[Kentish Town]], which he shared with [[Michael Sayers]] and [[Rayner Heppenstall]]. The relationship was sometimes awkward and Blair and Heppenstall even came to blows, though they remained friends and later worked together on BBC broadcasts.<ref>A Kind of Compulsion, p. 392.</ref> Blair was now working on ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying'', and also tried unsuccessfully to write a serial for the ''[[News Chronicle]]''. By October 1935 his flatmates had moved out and he was struggling to pay the rent on his own. He remained until the end of January 1936, when he stopped working at Booklovers' Corner. In 1980, [[English Heritage]] honoured Orwell with a [[blue plaque]] at his Kentish Town residence.<ref>{{cite news |title=George Orwell's Blue Plaque in Kentish Town, London NW5 |url=https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/george-orwell/ |access-date=27 February 2021 |agency=English Heritage}}</ref>

===''The Road to Wigan Pier''===
{{main|The Road to Wigan Pier}}
At this time, Victor Gollancz suggested Orwell spend a short time investigating social conditions in economically depressed [[Northern England]].{{refn|The conventional view, based on Geoffrey Gorer's recollections, is of a specific commission with a £500 advance. Taylor argues that Orwell's subsequent life does not suggest he received such a large advance, Gollancz was not known to pay large sums to relatively unknown authors, and Gollancz took little proprietorial interest in progress.<ref>D.J. Taylor, ''Orwell: The Life'', Chatto & Windus, 2003.</ref>|group= n}} The [[Great Depression in the United Kingdom|Depression]] had introduced a number of working-class writers from the North of England to the reading public. It was one of these working-class authors, [[Jack Hilton (author)|Jack Hilton]], whom Orwell sought for advice. Orwell had written to Hilton seeking lodging and asking for recommendations on his route. Hilton was unable to provide him lodging, but suggested that he travel to [[Wigan]] rather than Rochdale, "for there are the colliers and they're good stuff".<ref>Clarke, Ben. "George Orwell, Jack Hilton, and the Working Class". ''Review of English Studies'' 67.281 (2016) 764–785.</ref>

On 31 January 1936, Orwell set out by public transport and on foot. Arriving in Manchester after the banks had closed, he had to stay in a common lodging-house. The next day he picked up a list of contacts sent by Richard Rees. One of these, the trade union official Frank Meade, suggested [[Wigan]], where Orwell spent February staying in dirty lodgings over a [[tripe]] shop. In Wigan, he visited many homes to see how people lived, went down [[Bryn Hall Colliery|Bryn Hall coal mine]], and used the [[Museum of Wigan Life|local public library]] to consult public health records and reports on working conditions in mines.<ref>{{citation|url = http://orwellstracks.webklik.nl/page/wigan|title = Orwells tracks|access-date = 16 November 2021|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131203020355/http://orwellstracks.webklik.nl/page/wigan|archive-date = 3 December 2013|url-status = dead}}.</ref>

During this time, he was distracted by concerns about style and possible libel in ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying''. He made a quick visit to [[Liverpool]] and during March, stayed in south Yorkshire, spending time in [[Sheffield]] and [[Barnsley]]. As well as visiting mines, including [[Grimethorpe]], and observing social conditions, he attended meetings of the Communist Party and of [[Oswald Mosley]] ("his speech the usual claptrap—The blame for everything was put upon mysterious international gangs of Jews") where he saw the tactics of the [[British Union of Fascists|Blackshirts]].<ref>A Kind of Compulsion, p. 457.</ref> He also made visits to his sister at [[Headingley]], during which he visited the [[Brontë Parsonage Museum|Brontë Parsonage]] at [[Haworth]].<ref>A Kind of Compulsion, p. 450. The Road to Wigan Pier Diary.</ref>
[[File:Wigan Pier - geograph.org.uk - 4175.jpg|thumb|A former warehouse at [[Wigan Pier]] is named after Orwell.]]
[[File:No 2 Kits Lane, Wallington 2020-07-18.jpg|thumb|No 2 Kits Lane, [[Wallington, Hertfordshire]], Orwell's residence {{circa}} 1936–1940]]
Orwell needed somewhere he could concentrate on writing his book, and once again help was provided by Aunt Nellie, who was living at [[Wallington, Hertfordshire]], in a very small 16th-century cottage called the "Stores". Orwell took over the tenancy and moved in on 2&nbsp;April 1936.<ref>A Kind of Compulsion, p. 468.</ref> He started work on ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' by the end of April, but also spent hours working on the garden, planting a rose garden which is still extant, and revealing four years later that "outside my work the thing I care most about is gardening, especially vegetable gardening".<ref>{{Cite news |title=Orwell's Roses (by Rebecca Solnit review – deadheading with the writer and thinker) |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/19/orwells-roses-by-rebecca-solnit-review-george-orwell-in-the-garden |work=The Guardian |author=Gaby Hinsliff |date=19 October 2021 |access-date=20 August 2022 }}</ref> He also tested the possibility of reopening the Stores as a village shop. ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying'' was published by Gollancz on 20&nbsp;April 1936. On 4&nbsp;August, Orwell gave a talk at the Adelphi Summer School held at [[Langham, Essex|Langham]], entitled ''An Outsider Sees the Distressed Areas''; others who spoke at the school included [[John Strachey (politician)|John Strachey]], [[Max Plowman]], [[Karl Polanyi]] and [[Reinhold Niebuhr]].<ref>Davison, Peter (ed.). ''George Orwell: A Kind of Compulsion 1903–1936'' (1998), p.&nbsp;493.</ref>

The result of his journeys through the north was ''[[The Road to Wigan Pier]]'', published by Gollancz for the [[Left Book Club]] in 1937.<ref>Orwell, ''Facing Unpleasant Facts'', [[Secker & Warburg]] (new edition 2000), p.&nbsp;12.</ref> The first half of the book documents his social investigations of [[Lancashire]] and [[Yorkshire]], including an evocative description of working life in the coal mines. The second half is a long essay on his upbringing and the development of his political conscience, which includes an argument for socialism. Gollancz feared the second half would offend readers and added a disculpatory preface to the book while Orwell was in Spain.<ref>[[Ruth Dudley Edwards]], ''Victor Gollancz, a Biography'', pp. 246–247; quoted in ''A Kind of Compulsion: 1903–1936 (The Complete Works of George Orwell)'', p. 532.</ref> Orwell's research for ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' led to him being placed under surveillance by the [[Special Branch (Metropolitan Police)|Special Branch]] from 1936.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PageNotFound/PageNotFound.aspx?url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/releases/2005/highlights_july/july19/default.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111208064406/http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/releases/2005/highlights_july/july19/default.htm |url-status=dead |title=George Orwell under the watchful eye of Big Brother – The National Archives|archive-date=8 December 2011|website=www.nationalarchives.gov.uk}}</ref>

Orwell married O'Shaughnessy on 9 June 1936. Shortly afterwards, the political crisis began in Spain and Orwell followed developments there closely. At the end of the year, concerned by [[Francisco Franco]]'s military uprising, Orwell decided to go to Spain to take part in the [[Spanish Civil War]] on [[Second Spanish Republic|the Republican side]]. Under the erroneous impression that he needed papers from some left-wing organisation to cross the frontier, on [[John Strachey (politician)|John Strachey]]'s recommendation he applied unsuccessfully to [[Harry Pollitt]], leader of the [[British Communist Party]]. Pollitt was suspicious of Orwell's political reliability; he asked him whether he would undertake to join the [[International Brigades]] and advised him to get a safe-conduct from the Spanish Embassy in Paris.<ref>"Notes on the Spanish Militias" in Orwell in Spain, p.&nbsp;278.</ref> Not wishing to commit himself until he had seen the situation ''in situ'', Orwell instead used his Independent Labour Party contacts to get a letter of introduction to [[John McNair (UK politician)|John McNair]] in Barcelona.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ingle |first1=Stephen |title=George Orwell: A Political Life |date=1993 |publisher=Manchester University Press |page=41}}</ref>

===Spanish Civil War===
[[File:Placa de George Orwell in Barcelona 3.jpg|thumb|upright|The square in Barcelona renamed in Orwell's honour]]
Orwell set out for Spain on about 23 December 1936, dining with [[Henry Miller]] in Paris on the way. Miller told Orwell that going to fight in the Civil War out of some sense of obligation or guilt was "sheer stupidity" and that the Englishman's ideas "about combating Fascism, defending democracy, etc., etc., were all baloney".<ref>Haycock, ''I Am Spain'' (2013), 152.</ref> A few days later in [[Barcelona]], Orwell met John McNair of the [[Independent Labour Party]] (ILP) Office.<ref>John McNair – Interview with Ian Angus UCL 1964.</ref><ref name="catalonia">{{Cite book |last=Orwell |first=George |title=Homage to Catalonia |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2013 |page=197 |isbn=978-0141393025 }}</ref> The [[Second Spanish Republic|Republican government]] was supported by a number of factions with conflicting aims, including the [[Workers' Party of Marxist Unification]] (POUM), the [[anarcho-syndicalist]] [[Confederación Nacional del Trabajo]] (CNT) and the [[Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia]] (a wing of the [[Communist Party of Spain (main)|Spanish Communist Party]]). Orwell was at first exasperated by this "kaleidoscope" of political parties and trade unions.<ref name="catalonia"/> The ILP was linked to the POUM so Orwell joined the POUM.<ref>{{cite book |first=George |last=Orwell |title=[[Homage to Catalonia]] |publisher= [[Penguin Books]] |year=2013|pages=197–198}}</ref>

After a time at the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona he was sent to the relatively quiet [[Aragon#Spanish Civil War 1936–1939|Aragon Front]] under [[Georges Kopp]]. By January 1937 he was at [[Alcubierre]] {{convert|1500|ft|m}} above sea level, in the depth of winter. There was very little military action and Orwell was shocked by the lack of munitions, food and firewood as well as other extreme deprivations.<ref>See article by [[Iain King]] on Orwell's war experiences, [http://www.military-history.org/articles/thinkers-at-war-george-orwell.htm here.]</ref> With his Cadet Corps and police training, Orwell was quickly made a corporal. On the arrival of a British [[ILP Contingent]] about three weeks later, Orwell and the other English militiaman, Williams, were sent with them to [[Sierra de Alcubierre|Monte Oscuro]] and on to [[Huesca Offensive|Huesca]].

Meanwhile, back in England, Eileen had been handling the issues relating to the publication of ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' before setting out for Spain herself, leaving Nellie Limouzin to look after The Stores. Eileen volunteered for a post in John McNair's office and with the help of Georges Kopp paid visits to her husband, bringing him English tea, chocolate and cigars.<ref>Letter to Eileen Blair April 1937 in ''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 1&nbsp;– An Age Like This 1945–1950'' p.&nbsp;296 (Penguin).</ref> Orwell had to spend some days in hospital with a poisoned hand<ref name="nytimes.com">{{cite news|last=Hicks|first=Granville|title=George Orwell's Prelude in Spain|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/16/specials/orwell-homage.html|website=The New York Times|date=18 May 1952}}</ref> and had most of his possessions stolen by the staff. He returned to the front and saw some action in a night attack on the Nationalist trenches where he chased an enemy soldier with a bayonet and bombed an enemy rifle position.

In April, Orwell returned to Barcelona.<ref name="nytimes.com"/> Wanting to be sent to the Madrid front, which meant he "must join the International Column", he approached a Communist friend attached to the Spanish Medical Aid and explained his case. "Although he did not think much of the Communists, Orwell was still ready to treat them as friends and allies. That would soon change."<ref>Bowker, p. 216.</ref> During the [[Barcelona May Days]] Orwell was caught up in the factional fighting. He spent much of the time on a roof, with a stack of novels, but encountered [[Jon Kimche]] from his Hampstead days during the stay. The subsequent campaign of lies and distortion carried out by the Communist press,<ref>"The accusation of espionage against the P.O.U.M. rested solely upon articles in the Communist press and the activities of the Communist-controlled secret police." ''Homage to Catalonia'' p.&nbsp;168. Penguin, 1980.</ref> in which the POUM was accused of collaborating with the fascists, had a dramatic effect on Orwell. Instead of joining the International Brigades as he had intended, he decided to return to the Aragon Front. Once the May fighting was over, he was approached by a Communist friend who asked if he still intended transferring to the International Brigades. Orwell expressed surprise that they should still want him, because according to the Communist press he was a fascist.<ref name="newsinger">{{cite web |url=http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj62/newsinger.htm |title=Newsinger, John 'Orwell and the Spanish Revolution' ''International Socialism Journal'' Issue 62 Spring 1994 |publisher=Pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk |access-date=21 October 2010 |archive-date=17 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181017022834/http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj62/newsinger.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[File:George orwell.jpg|thumb|right|Memorial plaque in [[Lleida]] marking where Orwell received treatment at the Hospital Santa María de Lleida for his bullet wound to the neck]]
After his return to the front, he was wounded in the throat by a sniper's bullet. At {{cvt|6|ft|2|in|m}}, Orwell was considerably taller than the Spanish fighters<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.hoover.org/research/man-who-saved-orwell|title=Harry Milton&nbsp;– The Man Who Saved Orwell|journal=Hoover Digest|publisher=[[Hoover Institution]]|access-date=23 December 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150620092650/http://www.hoover.org/research/man-who-saved-orwell|archive-date=20 June 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> and had been warned against standing against the trench parapet. Unable to speak, and with blood pouring from his mouth, Orwell was carried on a stretcher to [[Siétamo]], loaded on an ambulance and sent to hospital in [[Lleida]]. He recovered sufficiently to get up and on 27&nbsp;May 1937 was sent on to [[Tarragona]] and two days later to a POUM sanatorium in the suburbs of Barcelona. The bullet had missed his main artery by the barest margin and his voice was barely audible. It had been such a clean shot that the wound immediately went through the process of [[cauterisation]]. He received [[electrotherapy]] treatment and was declared medically unfit for service.<ref>Taylor (2003), 228–229.</ref>

By the middle of June, the political situation in Barcelona had deteriorated and the POUM—painted by the pro-Soviet Communists as a [[Trotskyist]] organisation—was outlawed and under attack.<ref>Gordon Bowker, ''Orwell'', p. 218, {{ISBN|978-0349115511}}.</ref> Members, including Kopp, were arrested and others were in hiding. Orwell and his wife were under threat and had to lie low,{{refn|The author states that evidence discovered at the National Historical Archives in Madrid in 1989 of a security police report to the Tribunal for Espionage and High Treason described Eric Blair and his wife Eileen Blair, as "known Trotskyists" and as "linking agents of the ILP and the POUM". Newsinger goes on to state that given Orwell's precarious health, "there can be little doubt that if he had been arrested he would have died in prison".|group= n}} although they broke cover to try to help Kopp. They finally escaped from Spain by train. In the first week of July 1937 Orwell arrived back at Wallington; on 13 July 1937 a deposition was presented to the Tribunal for Espionage and High Treason in [[Valencia]], charging the Orwells with "rabid Trotskyism", and being agents of the POUM.<ref>''Facing Unpleasant Facts'', p. xxix, Secker & Warburg, 2000.</ref> The trial of the leaders of the POUM and of Orwell (in his absence) took place in Barcelona in October and November 1938. Observing events from French Morocco, Orwell wrote that they were "only a by-product of the [[Moscow trials|Russian Trotskyist trials]] and from the start every kind of lie, including flagrant absurdities, has been circulated in the Communist press".<ref>''Facing Unpleasant Facts'', pp. 31, 224.</ref> Orwell's experiences in the Spanish Civil War gave rise to ''[[Homage to Catalonia]]'' (1938).

In his book, ''The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War,'' [[Giles Tremlett]] writes that according to Soviet files, Orwell and his wife Eileen were spied on in Barcelona in May 1937.<ref>{{Cite web|date=11 October 2020|title=Revealed: Soviet spies targeted George Orwell during Spanish civil war|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/11/revealed-soviet-spies-targeted-george-orwell-during-spanish-civil-war|access-date=12 October 2020|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref>

===Rest and recuperation===
[[File:24 Crooms Hill, Greenwich, London-11July2010.jpg|thumb|Laurence O'Shaughnessy's former home, the large house on the corner, 24 Crooms Hill, [[Greenwich]], London<ref>{{cite web|url=http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/about-orwell/gordon-bowker-orwells-london|title=Gordon Bowker: Orwell's London|date=23 September 2010|publisher=theorwellprise.co.uk|access-date=2 February 2011}}</ref>]]

Orwell returned to England in June 1937, and stayed at the O'Shaughnessy home at Greenwich. He found his views on the Spanish Civil War out of favour, but praised the book ''Red Spanish Notebook: the first six months of revolution and the civil war'' by Juan Ramón Breá and [[Mary Stanley Low]] in a review for ''[[Time and Tide (magazine)|Time and Tide]]'' magazine.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yH_gSaP_GqsC&dq=mary+low+spain&pg=PT388 |title=Orwell in Spain |year= 2001 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0141913902 |pages=401 |language=en}}</ref> [[Kingsley Martin]] rejected two of Orwell's works and Gollancz was equally cautious. At the same time, the communist ''[[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Daily Worker]]'' was running an attack on ''The Road to Wigan Pier'', taking out of context Orwell writing that "the working classes smell"; a letter to Gollancz from Orwell threatening libel action brought a stop to this. Orwell was also able to find a more sympathetic publisher for his views in [[Fredric Warburg]] of Secker & Warburg. Orwell returned to Wallington, which he found in disarray after his absence. He acquired goats, a cockerel (rooster) he called [[Henry Ford]] and a poodle puppy he called [[Karl Marx|Marx]];<ref name=taylor/><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.paralumun.com/bioorwell.htm |title=George Orwell Biography |publisher=Paralumun.com |access-date=21 October 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110427222231/http://www.paralumun.com/bioorwell.htm |archive-date=27 April 2011 |url-status=usurped }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/16-8-40/ |title=The Orwell Prize |publisher=Orwelldiaries.wordpress.com |date=16 August 2010 |access-date=21 October 2010}}</ref> and settled down to animal husbandry and writing ''Homage to Catalonia''.

There were thoughts of going to India to work on ''[[The Pioneer (newspaper)|The Pioneer]]'', a newspaper in [[Lucknow]], but by March 1938 Orwell's health had deteriorated. He was admitted to [[Preston Hall, Aylesford|Preston Hall Sanatorium]] at [[Aylesford]], Kent, a [[Royal British Legion Industries]] hospital for ex-servicemen to which his brother-in-law Laurence O'Shaughnessy was attached. He was thought initially to be suffering from [[tuberculosis]] and stayed in the sanatorium until September. ''Homage to Catalonia'' was published in London by [[Harvill Secker|Secker & Warburg]] and was a commercial flop; it re-emerged in the 1950s, following on the success of Orwell's later books.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Buchanan|first=Tom|date=1 September 2002|title=Three Lives of Homage to Catalonia|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/library/3.3.302|journal=The Library|volume=3|issue=3|pages=302–314|doi=10.1093/library/3.3.302|issn=0024-2160|access-date=17 October 2021|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

The novelist [[Leo Myers|L.H. Myers]] secretly funded a trip to [[French Morocco]] for half a year for Orwell to avoid the English winter and recover his health. The Orwells set out in September 1938 via [[Gibraltar]] and [[Tangier]] to avoid [[Spanish Morocco]] and arrived at [[Marrakech]]. They rented a villa on the road to [[Casablanca]] and during that time Orwell wrote ''[[Coming Up for Air]]''. They arrived back in England on 30 March 1939 and ''Coming Up for Air'' was published in June. Orwell spent time in Wallington and Southwold working on an essay about [[Charles Dickens]]. In June 1939, Orwell's father died.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Connelly |first1=Mark |title=George Orwell: A Literary Companion |date=2018 |publisher=McFarland |page=17}}</ref>

===Second World War and ''Animal Farm''===
[[File:George Orwell and Sir Stephen Spender (Marchmont Association).jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Based in [[Lansdowne Terrace, London|Lansdowne Terrace]], [[Bloomsbury]], London, Orwell wrote for ''[[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]]'' magazine (co-founded by [[Stephen Spender]]) from 1940]]
At the outbreak of the [[Second World War]], Orwell's wife Eileen started working in the Censorship Department of the [[Ministry of Information (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Information]] in central London, staying during the week with her family in [[Greenwich]]. Orwell submitted his name to the Central Register for war work, but nothing transpired. He returned to Wallington, and in late 1939 he wrote material for his first collection of essays, ''[[Inside the Whale and Other Essays|Inside the Whale]]''. For the next year he was occupied writing reviews for plays, films and books for ''[[The Listener (magazine)|The Listener]]'', ''[[Time and Tide (magazine)|Time and Tide]]'' and ''New Adelphi''. On 29 March 1940 his long association with ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' began<ref>''A Patriot After All, 1940–41'', p. xvii, Secker & Warburg, 1998.</ref> with a review of a sergeant's account of [[Napoleon]]'s [[French invasion of Russia|retreat from Moscow]]. At the beginning of 1940, the first edition of Connolly's ''[[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]]'' appeared, and this provided a new outlet for Orwell's work and new literary contacts. In May the Orwells took lease of a flat in London at Dorset Chambers, Chagford Street, [[Marylebone]]. It was the time of the [[Dunkirk evacuation]], and the death in [[Flanders]] of Eileen's brother Laurence O'Shaughnessy caused her considerable grief and long-term depression.<ref>[https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/lives/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ASSET$002f0$002fSD_ASSET:376589/one?qu=%22rcs%3A+E004406%22&rt=false%7C%7C%7CIDENTIFIER%7C%7C%7CResource+Identifier O'Shaughnessy, Laurence Frederick (1900–1940)]. Royal College of Surgeons of England. Obituary.</ref>

Orwell was declared "unfit for any kind of military service" by the Medical Board in June, but soon joined the [[Home Guard (United Kingdom)|Home Guard]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/newsroom/orwell/story/0,,1048203,00.html|title=About George Orwell |website=theguardian.com|access-date=2 September 2017}}</ref> He shared [[Tom Wintringham]]'s socialist vision for the Home Guard as a revolutionary People's Militia. His lecture notes for instructing platoon members include advice on street fighting, field fortifications, and the use of [[Mortar (weapon)|mortars]]. Sergeant Orwell recruited [[Fredric Warburg]] to his unit. During the [[Battle of Britain]] he spent weekends with Warburg and his new [[Zionist]] friend, [[T. R. Fyvel|Tosco Fyvel]], at Warburg's house at [[Twyford, Berkshire]]. At Wallington he worked on "[[England Your England]]" and in London wrote reviews for periodicals. Visiting Eileen's family in Greenwich brought him face-to-face with the effects of [[the Blitz|the German Blitz]] bombings. In 1940 he first worked for the [[BBC]] as a producer on their Indian Section, while the broadcaster and writer [[Venu Chitale]] was his secretary.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Sutaria |first1=Sejal |title=Walking the Line: Venu Chitale |url=https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/pioneering-women/venu-chitale/ |access-date=28 December 2023 |work=BBC |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220722190155/https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/pioneering-women/venu-chitale/ |archive-date=22 July 2022 |language=en}}</ref> In mid-1940, Warburg, Fyvel and Orwell planned [[Searchlight Books]]. Eleven volumes eventually appeared, of which Orwell's ''[[The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius]]'', published in February 1941, was the first.<ref>''A Patriot After All'', p. xviii.</ref>

Early in 1941 he began to write for the American ''[[Partisan Review]]'' which linked Orwell with the [[New York Intellectuals]] who were also anti-Stalinist,<ref>[[Frances Stonor Saunders]], ''[[Who Paid the Piper?]]'', p.&nbsp;160.</ref> and contributed to the Gollancz anthology ''The Betrayal of the Left'', written in the light of the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]]. He applied unsuccessfully for a job at the [[Air Ministry]]. Meanwhile, he was still writing reviews of books and plays and met the novelist [[Anthony Powell]]. He took part in radio broadcasts for the Eastern Service of the BBC. In March the Orwells moved to a seventh-floor flat at Langford Court, [[St John's Wood]], while at Wallington Orwell was "[[Dig for Victory|digging for victory]]" by planting potatoes.

{{Blockquote|
One could not have a better example of the moral and emotional shallowness of our time, than the fact that we are now all more or less pro Stalin. This disgusting murderer is temporarily on our side, and so the purges, etc., are suddenly forgotten.
|George Orwell, in his war-time diary, 3 July 1941<ref>''A Patriot After All 1940–1941'', p.&nbsp;522.</ref>}}

In August 1941, Orwell finally obtained "war work" when he was taken on full-time by the BBC's Eastern Service.<ref name="ind060416">{{cite news |last1=Walsh |first1=John |title=BBC proposes 8 ft tall bronze statue in honour of George Orwell |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/bbc-proposes-8ft-tall-bronze-statue-in-honour-of-george-orwell-a6971961.html |access-date=19 May 2020 |work=The Independent |date=6 April 2016}}</ref> He supervised cultural broadcasts to India, to counter propaganda from [[Nazi Germany]] designed to undermine imperial links.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Orwell|first=George |title=The War Broadcasts |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Urb_nQEACAAJ |year=1987 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0140189100}}</ref>

At the end of August he had a dinner with [[H. G. Wells]] which degenerated into a row because Wells had taken offence at observations Orwell made about him in a ''Horizon'' article. In October Orwell had a bout of bronchitis; the illness recurred frequently. [[David Astor]] was looking for a provocative contributor for ''[[The Observer]]'' Sunday newspaper, and invited Orwell to write for him; the first article appeared in March 1942. In early 1942 Eileen changed jobs to work at the [[Minister of Food (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Food]], and in mid-1942 the Orwells moved to a larger flat, 10a Mortimer Crescent in [[Maida Vale]]/[[Kilburn, London|Kilburn]].<ref>Crick (1982), pp. 432–433.</ref>

[[File:George-orwell-BBC.jpg|thumb|left|upright=.8|Orwell spoke on many [[BBC]] and other broadcasts, but no recordings are known to survive.<ref name="Bowker2013">{{cite book|author=Gordon Bowker|title=George Orwell|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bdAzAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT309|year= 2013|publisher=Little, Brown Book Group|isbn=978-1405528054|pages=309–310}}</ref><ref name="Recordings Capture Writers' Voices Off The Page Listen Queue">{{cite news|title=Recordings Capture Writers' Voices Off The Page Listen Queue|newspaper = NPR.org|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96030704|publisher=NPR|access-date=5 November 2016}}</ref><ref name="BBC tried to take George Orwell off air because of 'unattractive' voice">{{Cite news|last1=Khan|first1=Urmeen|title=BBC tried to take George Orwell off air because of 'unattractive' voice|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/5445579/BBC-tried-to-take-George-Orwell-off-air-because-of-unattractive-voice.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/5445579/BBC-tried-to-take-George-Orwell-off-air-because-of-unattractive-voice.html |archive-date=10 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|website=Daily Telegraph|access-date=5 November 2016|quote=The BBC tried to take the author George Orwell off air because his voice was "unattractive", according to archive documents released by the corporation...no recording of Orwell's voice survives but contemporaries—such as the artist Lucian Freud—have described it as "monotonous" with "no power".|date=4 June 2009}}{{cbignore}}</ref>]]
At the BBC, Orwell introduced ''Voice'', a literary programme for his Indian broadcasts, and by now was leading an active social life with literary friends, particularly on the political left. Late in 1942 he started writing regularly for the left-wing weekly ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]''<ref>Rodden (1989), p. 306.</ref><ref>Crick (1982), p. 441.</ref> directed by [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] MPs [[Aneurin Bevan]] and [[George Strauss]]. In March 1943, Orwell's mother died, and around this time he told Moore he was starting work on a book, which turned out to be ''[[Animal Farm]]''.

In September 1943, Orwell resigned from the BBC<ref name="Crick-LBC">{{cite book|last=Crick|first=Bernard R.|title=George Orwell: A Life|url=https://archive.org/details/georgeorwelllife0000cric|url-access=registration|date=1980|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|location=Boston|isbn=978-0316161121}}</ref>{{RP|352}} following a report confirming his fears that few Indians listened to the broadcasts,<ref>{{citation|url=http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Burmese_Days/english/e_mm_int|first=Malcolm |last=Muggeridge|title=Burmese Days ''(Introduction)''|publisher=[[Time Inc.]]|year=1962}} [[Malcolm Muggeridge]] recalls that he asked Orwell if such broadcasts were useful, {{"'}}Perhaps not', he said, somewhat crestfallen. He added, more cheerfully, that anyway, no one could pick up the broadcasts except on short-wave sets which cost about the equivalent of an Indian labourer's earnings over 10 years".</ref> but he was also keen to concentrate on writing ''Animal Farm''. On 24&nbsp;November 1943, six days before his last day of service, his adaptation of the [[fairy tale]], [[Hans Christian Andersen]]'s ''[[The Emperor's New Clothes]]'' was broadcast. It was a genre in which he was greatly interested and which appeared on ''Animal Farm''{{'}}s title page.<ref>''Two Wasted Years'', 1943, p. xxi, Secker & Warburg, 2001.</ref> He resigned from the Home Guard on medical grounds.<ref>''I Have Tried to Tell the Truth'', p. xv. Secker & Warburg, 2001.</ref>

In November 1943, Orwell was appointed literary editor at ''Tribune'', where his assistant was his friend [[Jon Kimche]]. Orwell was on the staff until early 1945, writing over 80 book reviews,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yRHBGAAACAAJ |author1=Orwell, G. |author2=Davison, P. |title=I Have Tried to Tell the Truth |publisher=Secker & Warburg |location=London |year=1999 |isbn=978-0436203701 }}{{Dead link|date=March 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> and on 3&nbsp;December 1943 started his regular personal column "[[As I Please]]".<ref>''I Have Tried to Tell the Truth'', p. xxix.</ref> He was still writing reviews for other magazines, including ''Partisan Review'', ''Horizon'', and the New York ''[[The Nation|Nation]]''. By April 1944 ''Animal Farm'' was ready for publication. Gollancz refused to publish it, considering it an attack on the [[Politics of the Soviet Union|regime of the Soviet Union]], a crucial ally in the war. A similar fate was met from other publishers, including [[T.&nbsp;S.&nbsp;Eliot]] at [[Faber & Faber]], until [[Jonathan Cape]] agreed to take it.

Orwell and Eileen wanted children, but he was sterile and she may also have been infertile due to uterine cancer.<ref name=son/> In May the Orwells had the opportunity to adopt a child, thanks to the contacts of Eileen's sister-in-law Gwen O'Shaughnessy,<ref name=taylor>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/10/georgeorwell.classics |title=Another piece of the puzzle |newspaper=The Guardian |last=Taylor |first=DJ|authorlink=D. J. Taylor (writer)|date=10 December 2005}}</ref> then a doctor in [[Newcastle upon Tyne]]. In June a [[V-1 flying bomb]] struck Mortimer Crescent and the Orwells had to find somewhere else to live. Orwell had to scrabble around in the rubble for his books, which he had finally managed to transfer from Wallington, carting them away in a wheelbarrow. Another blow was Cape's reversal of his plan to publish ''Animal Farm''. The decision followed his visit to [[Peter Smollett]], an official at the [[Ministry of Information (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Information]], who was later identified as a Soviet agent.<ref name="TGA">{{cite news |author=Garton Ash, Timothy |author-link=Timothy Garton Ash |title=Orwell's List |work=[[The New York Review of Books]] |date=25 September 2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305071504/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/09/25/orwells-list/|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/09/25/orwells-list/|archive-date=5 March 2016|access-date=26 April 2016}}</ref><ref name="Caute2009">{{cite book |last=Caute |first=David |author-link=David Caute |title=Politics and the Novel during the Cold War |year=2009 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |location=New Brunswick, NJ |isbn=978-1412811613 |page=79}}</ref>
The Orwells spent time in the North East, near [[Carlton, County Durham]], dealing with the adoption of a boy whom they named [[Richard Blair (patron)|Richard Horatio Blair]].<ref>"He had led a quiet life as Richard Blair, not 'Richard Orwell'": Shelden (1991), pp.&nbsp;398, 489.</ref> By September 1944 they had set up home in [[Islington]], at 27b&nbsp;[[Canonbury Square]].<ref>Orwell: Collected Works, I Have Tried to Tell the Truth, p.&nbsp;283.</ref> Baby Richard joined them there, and Eileen gave up her work at the Ministry of Food to look after her family. [[Secker & Warburg]] had agreed to publish ''Animal Farm'', planned for the following March, although it did not appear in print until August 1945. By February 1945 David Astor had invited Orwell to become a war correspondent for ''The Observer''. He went to liberated Paris, then to Germany and Austria, to cities including [[Cologne]] and [[Stuttgart]]. He was never in the front line, under fire, but followed the troops closely, "sometimes entering a captured town within a day of its fall while dead bodies lay in the streets".<ref>{{Cite web |date=3 October 2021 |title=Reporting from the Ruins |url=https://orwellsociety.com/reporting-from-the-ruins/ |access-date=1 March 2022 |website=The Orwell Society |language=en-GB}}</ref> Some of his reports were published in the ''[[Manchester Evening News]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vrs-EAAAQBAJ |title=Ruins: Orwell's Reports as War Correspondent in France, Germany and Austria from February until June 1945 |first=George |last=Orwell |date=2021 |publisher=Comino Verlag |via=Google Books |isbn = 978-3945831311 |access-date=19 September 2021}}</ref>

While he was there, Eileen went into hospital for a [[hysterectomy]]. She had not given Orwell much notice about the operation because of worries about the cost, and because she expected to make a speedy recovery; however she died on 29&nbsp;March 1945 of an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic she was given.<ref name=son>{{cite interview|interviewer=[[Simon Hattenstone]]| first=Richard|last=Blair| title=George Orwell and me: Richard Blair on life with his extraordinary father |newspaper=The Guardian | date=19 March 2025 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/19/george-orwell-me-richard-blair-life-with-extraordinary-father}}</ref> It was expected that he would give up his nine-month-old adopted son, but he did not.<ref name=son/> Orwell returned home and then went back to Europe. He returned to London to cover the [[1945 United Kingdom general election|1945 general election]] at the beginning of July. ''[[Animal Farm|Animal Farm: A Fairy Story]]'' was published in Britain on 17&nbsp;August 1945, and in America on 26&nbsp;August 1946.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bloom |first1=Harold |title=George Orwell's Animal Farm |date=2009 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |page=128}}</ref>

===Jura and ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''===
''Animal Farm'' had particular resonance in the post-war climate and its worldwide success made Orwell a sought-after figure. For the next four years, Orwell mixed journalistic work—mainly for ''Tribune'', ''The Observer'' and the ''[[Manchester Evening News]]'', though he also contributed to many small-circulation political and [[literary magazine]]s—with writing his best-known work, ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', which was published in 1949. He was a leading figure in the so-called Shanghai Club (named after a restaurant in Soho) of left-leaning and émigré journalists, among them [[E. H. Carr]], [[Sebastian Haffner]], [[Isaac Deutscher]], [[Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth|Barbara Ward]] and [[Jon Kimche]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Koutsopanagou|first=Gioula|title=The British Press and the Greek Crisis, 1943–1949: Orchestrating the Cold-War 'Consensus' in Britain|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2020|isbn=978-1137551559|location=London|pages=52–53}}</ref>

[[File:Barnhill (Cnoc an t-Sabhail) - geograph.org.uk - 451643.jpg|thumb|right|[[Barnhill, Jura|Barnhill]] farmhouse on the Isle of [[Jura, Scotland|Jura]], Scotland. Orwell completed ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' while living here.]]

In the year following Eileen's death he published around 130 articles and a selection of his ''[[Critical Essays (Orwell)|Critical Essays]]'', while remaining active in various political lobbying campaigns. He employed a housekeeper, Susan Watson, to look after his adopted son at the [[Islington]] flat, which visitors now described as "bleak". In September he spent a fortnight on the island of [[Jura, Scotland|Jura]] in the [[Inner Hebrides]] and saw it as a place to escape from the hassle of London literary life. David Astor was instrumental in arranging a place for Orwell on Jura.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://theorwellprize.co.uk/news/remembering-jura/ |title=Remembering Jura, Richard Blair |publisher=Theorwellprize.co.uk |date=5 October 2012 |access-date=14 May 2014 |archive-date=31 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170131052708/https://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/news/remembering-jura/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Astor's family owned Scottish estates in the area and a fellow Old Etonian, Robin Fletcher, had a property on the island. In late 1945 and early 1946 Orwell made several hopeless and unwelcome marriage proposals to younger women, including [[Celia Kirwan]]; Ann Popham, who happened to live in the same block of flats; and [[Sonia Brownell]], one of Connolly's coterie at the ''Horizon'' office. Orwell suffered a tubercular haemorrhage in February 1946 but disguised his illness. In 1945 or early 1946, while still living at Canonbury Square, Orwell wrote an article on "British Cookery", complete with recipes, commissioned by the [[British Council]]. Given the post-war shortages, both parties agreed not to publish it.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/life-and-work.aspx |title=The Orwell Prize {{!}} Life and Work – Exclusive Access to the Orwell Archive |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071210180526/http://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/life-and-work.aspx |archive-date=10 December 2007}}</ref> His sister Marjorie died in May.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ingle |first1=Stephen |title=George Orwell A Political Life |date=1993 |publisher=Manchester University Press |page=84}}</ref>

On 22 May 1946, Orwell set off with his two-year-old son, who he treated as a mini-adult,<ref name=son/> to live on Jura in [[Barnhill, Jura|Barnhill]], an abandoned farmhouse without outbuildings.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.orwelltoday.com/jurabarnhillvisit.shtml|title= Barnhill}} is located at {{Coord|56|06|39|N|5|41|30|W|display=inline}} ([[British national grid reference system]] NR705970)</ref> Conditions at the farmhouse were primitive but the natural history and the challenge of improving the place appealed to Orwell. His son found out later that Orwell was terrified of passing on his tuberculosis to him by hugging or kissing him, and concerned that this would interfere with his bonding with the child.<ref name=son/> Orwell returned to London in late 1946 and picked up his literary journalism again. Now a well-known writer, he was swamped with work. Apart from a visit to Jura in the new year he stayed in London for [[Winter of 1946–1947 in the United Kingdom|one of the coldest British winters on record]] and with such a national shortage of fuel that he burnt his furniture and his child's toys. The heavy smog in the days before the [[Clean Air Act 1956]] did little to help his health, about which he was reticent, keeping clear of medical attention. Meanwhile, he had to cope with rival claims of publishers Gollancz and Warburg for publishing rights. About this time he co-edited a collection titled ''British Pamphleteers'' with [[Reginald Reynolds]]. 

As a result of the success of ''Animal Farm'', Orwell was expecting a large bill from the [[Inland Revenue]] and he contacted a firm of accountants. The firm advised Orwell to establish a company to own his copyright and to receive his royalties and set up a "service agreement" so that he could draw a salary; "George Orwell Productions Ltd" (GOP Ltd) was set up on 12 September 1947.<ref name=Carroll>{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-writer-wronged-nc07cw9clc5 |title=Tim Carroll 'A writer wronged' |journal=The Sunday Times |publisher=Timesonline.co.uk |date= 15 August 2014|access-date=14 May 2014}}</ref>
Orwell left London for Jura on 10 April 1947.<ref name=Taylor/> In July he ended the lease on the Wallington cottage.<ref>Crick (1982), p. 530</ref> Back on Jura he worked on ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. During that time his sister's family visited, and Orwell led a disastrous boating expedition, on 19 August,<ref>Orwell: Collected Works, ''It Is What I Think'', p. xx, ''Daily Telegraph'', 2 December 2013, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/10487292/George-Orwell-nearly-drowned-in-a-whirlpool-before-completing-Nighteen-Eighty-Four.html]</ref> which nearly led to loss of life whilst trying to cross the notorious [[Gulf of Corryvreckan]] and gave him a soaking which was not good for his health. In December a chest specialist was summoned from Glasgow who pronounced Orwell seriously ill, and a week before Christmas 1947 he was in [[Hairmyres Hospital]]. [[Tuberculosis]] was diagnosed and the request for permission to import the new medicine [[streptomycin]] to treat Orwell went as far as [[Aneurin Bevan]], then Minister of Health. [[David Astor]] helped with supply and payment and Orwell began his course of streptomycin on 19 or 20 February 1948.<ref>It Is what I Think, p. 274</ref> By the end of July 1948 Orwell was able to return to Jura and by December he had finished the manuscript of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. In January 1949, in a very weak condition, he set off for a sanatorium at [[Cranham, Gloucestershire]]. However, streptomycin could not be continued, as he developed [[toxic epidermal necrolysis]], a rare side effect.<ref name="Ross_2005">{{cite journal | vauthors = Ross JJ| title = Tuberculosis, bronchiectasis, and infertility: what ailed George Orwell? | journal = Clin Infect Dis | volume = 41 | issue = 11 | pages = 1599–1603| date = December 2005 | doi =10.1086/497838 |pmid = 16267732 | pmc= | doi-access = free |issn = 1058-4838}}</ref>

[[File:Animal Farm strip cartoon.jpg|thumb|280px|One of the ''[[Animal Farm]]'' cartoon strips produced for the Cold War anti-communist department of the British Foreign Office, the [[Information Research Department]] (IRD)]]

The sanatorium at Cranham consisted of a series of small wooden chalets or huts in a remote part of the [[Cotswolds]] near [[Stroud]]. Visitors were shocked by Orwell's appearance and concerned by the shortcomings and ineffectiveness of the treatment. Friends were worried about his finances, but by now he was comparatively well off. He was writing to many of his friends, including Jacintha Buddicom, who had "rediscovered" him. In March 1949 he was visited by Celia Kirwan, who had just started working for a [[Foreign Office]] unit, the [[Information Research Department]] (IRD), set up by the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] government to publish [[anti-communist]] propaganda; Orwell gave her a list of people he considered to be unsuitable as IRD authors because of their pro-communist leanings. [[Orwell's list]], not published until 2003, consisted mainly of writers, and some actors and Labour MPs.<ref name="TGA"/><ref>{{cite news |work=The Guardian |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jun/21/books.artsandhumanities |first=John |last=Ezard |title=Blair's babe: Did love turn Orwell into a government stooge? |date=21 June 2003}}</ref> To further promote ''Animal Farm'', the IRD commissioned cartoon strips, drawn by [[Norman Pett]], to be placed in newspapers across the globe.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Defty|first=Andrew|title=Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda 1945–1953: The Information Research Department|publisher=Routledge|year=2005|isbn=|location=e-book version|pages=161}}</ref> Orwell received more streptomycin treatment and improved slightly. This repeat dose of streptomycin, especially after the side effect had been noticed, has been called "ill-advised".<ref name="Ross_2005"/> He then received [[penicillin]], presumably to treat his [[bronchiectasis]]; doctors knew it was ineffective against tuberculosis.<ref name="Ross_2005"/> In June 1949 ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' was published to critical acclaim.<ref>{{cite news |title=1950: Acclaimed author George Orwell dies |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/21/newsid_2669000/2669789.stm |access-date=20 September 2021 |publisher=BBC}}</ref>

===Final months and death===
[[File:UCL Gower Street.jpg|thumb|[[University College Hospital]] in London, where Orwell died]]

Orwell's health continued to decline. In mid-1949, he courted Sonia Brownell, believed to be the model for [[Julia (Nineteen Eighty-Four)|Julia]], the heroine of ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'',<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/may/19/georgeorwell.biography |title= Dedicated follower of passions |website=The Guardian|date=19 May 2002}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/15/books/the-widow-orwell.html|title= The Widow Orwell |website=The New York Times|date=15 June 2003}}</ref> and they announced their engagement in September. Shortly afterwards he was removed to [[University College Hospital]] in London. Brownell took charge of Orwell's affairs and attended him diligently in the hospital. Friends of Orwell stated that Brownell helped him through the painful last months of his life and, according to [[Anthony Powell]], cheered Orwell up greatly.<ref>Powell, Anthony, 1977. ''Infants of the Spring,'' p. 106. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.</ref> However, others have argued that she may have been attracted to him primarily because of his fame.<ref name="Ross_2005"/>

In September 1949, Orwell invited his accountant Jack Harrison to visit him at the hospital, and Harrison claimed that Orwell then asked him to become director of GOP Ltd and to manage the company, but there was no independent witness.<ref name=Carroll/> Orwell's wedding took place in the hospital room on 13 October 1949, with David Astor as best man.<ref name="Ingle1993">{{cite book|last=Ingle|first=Stephen|title=George Orwell: a political life|year=1993|publisher=Manchester University Press|location=Manchester|isbn=978-0719032332|page=90}}</ref> Further meetings were held with his accountant, at which Harrison and the Blairs were confirmed as directors of the company.<ref name=Carroll/> Orwell's health was in decline again by Christmas. Harrison visited later and claimed that Orwell had given him 25% of the company.<ref name=Carroll/> At the age of 46, Orwell suffered a [[pulmonary artery]] rupture due to complications of tuberculosis, and died in the early morning of 21 January 1950.<ref name="obit">{{Cite news |title=George Orwell, author, 46, Dead. British Writer, Acclaimed for His '1984' and 'Animal Farm,' is Victim of Tuberculosis. Two Novels Popular Here Distaste for Imperialism |work=The New York Times |date=22 January 1950}}</ref>[[File:Grave of Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell), All Saints, Sutton Courtenay - geograph.org.uk - 362277.jpg|thumb|upright|Orwell's grave in [[All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay|All Saints']] churchyard, [[Sutton Courtenay]], Oxfordshire]]

Orwell had requested to be buried "according to the rites of the [[Church of England]], in the nearest convenient cemetery".<ref name=AC-History>{{cite web |title=History of All Saints' Church |url=http://www.all-saints-church.org.uk/history.php |publisher=All Saints' Church Sutton Courtenay |access-date=27 July 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140627230312/http://all-saints-church.org.uk/history.php |archive-date=27 June 2014}}</ref> The graveyards in central London had no space, and so in an effort to ensure his last wishes could be fulfilled, his widow appealed to his friends to see whether any of them knew of a church with space in its graveyard. David Astor arranged for Orwell to be interred in the churchyard of [[All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay]],<ref>[[Andrew Anthony]] (11 May 2003). [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/may/11/georgeorwell.classics "Orwell: the Observer years"], ''[[The Observer]]'', Observer Review Pages, p. 1.</ref> on 26 January 1950.{{sfn|Colls|2013|p=217}} The funeral was organised by Anthony Powell and Malcolm Muggeridge. Powell chose the hymns: "[[Old 100th|All people that on earth do dwell]]", "[[Cwm Rhondda|Guide me, O thou great Redeemer]]" and "Ten thousand times ten thousand".<ref>Taylor, D.J. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/jan/15/georgeorwell.classics Last days of Orwell] ''The Guardian'' (14 January 2000).</ref>

Orwell's adopted son, [[Richard Blair (patron)|Richard Horatio Blair]], was brought up by Orwell's sister Avril, his legal guardian, and her husband, Bill Dunn.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://orwellsociety.com/richard-blair-on-life-with-my-aunt-avril/|title=Richard Blair on Life With My Aunt Avril|date=27 October 2011|website=The Orwell Society}}</ref> In 1979, Sonia Brownell brought a [[High Court of Justice|High Court]] action against Harrison when he declared an intention to subdivide his 25 per cent share of the company between his three children. For Sonia, the consequence of this manoeuvre would have made getting overall control of the company three times more difficult. She was considered to have a strong case, but was becoming increasingly ill and eventually was persuaded to settle out of court on 2 November 1980. She died on 11 December 1980, aged 62.<ref name="Carroll" />

==Writing==
During most of his career, Orwell was best known for his journalism, in essays, reviews, columns in newspapers and magazines and in his books of reportage: ''[[Down and Out in Paris and London]]'' (describing a period of poverty in these cities), ''[[The Road to Wigan Pier]]'' (describing the living conditions of the poor in [[northern England]], and [[class division]] generally) and ''[[Homage to Catalonia]]''. According to [[Irving Howe]], Orwell was "the best English essayist since [[William Hazlitt|Hazlitt]], perhaps since [[Samuel Johnson|Dr&nbsp;Johnson]]".<ref name="Howe">{{Cite magazine|author-link=Irving Howe|title=George Orwell: 'As the bones know'|first=Irving|last=Howe|magazine=[[Harper's Magazine]]|date= January 1969}}(reprinted in ''[[Newsweek]]''). Howe considered Orwell "the finest journalist of his day and the foremost architect of the English essay since [[William Hazlitt|Hazlitt]]".</ref>

Modern readers are more often introduced to Orwell as a novelist, particularly through his enormously successful ''[[Animal Farm]]'' and ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''. The former is often thought to reflect degeneration in the Soviet Union after the [[Russian Revolution of 1917|Russian Revolution]] and the rise of [[Stalinism]]; the latter, life under [[totalitarianism|totalitarian rule]]. In 1984, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' and [[Ray Bradbury]]'s ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'' were honoured with the [[Prometheus Award]] for their contributions to dystopian literature. In 2011 he received it again for ''Animal Farm''. In 2003, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' was listed at number 8 and ''Animal Farm'' at number 46 on the BBC's [[The Big Read]] poll.<ref>{{cite news |title=BBC&nbsp;– The Big Read |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml |access-date=31 December 2021 |agency=BBC}}</ref> In 2021, readers of the [[The New York Times Book Review|''New York Times Book Review'']] rated ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' third in a list of "The best books of the past 125 years".<ref>{{Cite news|date=29 December 2021|title=What's the Best Book of the Past 125 Years? We Asked Readers to Decide.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/28/books/best-book-winners.html|access-date=31 December 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

===Literary influences===
In an autobiographical piece that Orwell sent to the editors of ''Twentieth Century Authors'' in 1940, he wrote:<ref>{{cite book |title=Writers: Their Lives and Works |date=2018 |publisher=Dorling Kindersley Ltd |page=245}}</ref>
<blockquote>
The writers I care about most and never grow tired of are: [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], [[Jonathan Swift|Swift]], [[Henry Fielding|Fielding]], [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]], [[Charles Reade]], [[Gustave Flaubert|Flaubert]] and, among modern writers, [[James Joyce]], [[T.&nbsp;S.&nbsp;Eliot]] and [[D.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;Lawrence]]. But I believe the modern writer who has influenced me most is [[W.&nbsp;Somerset Maugham]], whom I admire immensely for his power of telling a story straightforwardly and without frills.
</blockquote>
Elsewhere, Orwell strongly praised the works of [[Jack London]], especially his book ''[[The Road (London book)|The Road]]''. Orwell's investigation of poverty in ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' strongly resembles that of Jack London's ''[[The People of the Abyss]]'', in which the American journalist disguises himself as an out-of-work sailor to investigate the lives of the poor in London. In his essay "Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" (1946) Orwell wrote: "If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' among them." On [[H.&nbsp;G.&nbsp;Wells]] he wrote: "The minds of all of us, and therefore the physical world, would be perceptibly different if Wells had never existed."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Sperber |first1=Murray A. |title=The Author as Cultural Hero: H.G. Wells and George Orwell |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24780682 |publisher=University of Manitoba |date=1981|jstor=24780682 }}</ref>

Orwell was an admirer of [[Arthur Koestler]] and became a close friend during the three years that Koestler and his wife Mamain spent at the cottage of Bwlch Ocyn in the [[Vale of Ffestiniog]]. Orwell reviewed Koestler's ''[[Darkness at Noon]]'' for the ''[[New Statesman]]'' in 1941, saying:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.walesartsreview.org/to-the-detriment-of-us-all-the-untouched-legacy-of-arthur-koestler-and-george-orwell/|title=The Untouched Legacy of Arthur Koestler and George Orwell|date=24 February 2016|access-date=2 September 2017|archive-date=3 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170903033505/http://www.walesartsreview.org/to-the-detriment-of-us-all-the-untouched-legacy-of-arthur-koestler-and-george-orwell/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
{{blockquote|
Brilliant as this book is as a novel, and a piece of brilliant literature, it is probably most valuable as an interpretation of the Moscow "confessions" by someone with an inner knowledge of totalitarian methods. What was frightening about [[Moscow trials|these trials]] was not the fact that they happened—for obviously such things are necessary in a totalitarian society—but the eagerness of Western intellectuals to justify them.
}}

Other writers Orwell admired included [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]], [[George Gissing]], [[Graham Greene]], [[Herman Melville]], [[Henry Miller]], [[Tobias Smollett]], [[Mark Twain]], [[Joseph Conrad]], and [[Yevgeny Zamyatin]].<ref>''Letter to Gleb Struve, 17 February 1944'', Orwell: Essays, Journalism and Letters, Vol.&nbsp;3, eds. Sonia Brownell and Ian Angus.</ref> He was both an admirer and a critic of [[Rudyard Kipling]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Burmese_Days/english/e_mm_int |title=Malcolm Muggeridge: Introduction |access-date=23 December 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk/2939606.html |title=Does Orwell Matter? |access-date=23 December 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705141429/http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk/2939606.html |archive-date=5 July 2008 }}</ref> praising Kipling as a gifted writer and a "good bad poet" whose work is "spurious" and "morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting", but undeniably seductive and able to speak to certain aspects of reality more effectively than more enlightened authors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/kipling/english/e_rkip |title=George Orwell: Rudyard Kipling |access-date=23 December 2008}}</ref> He had a similarly ambivalent attitude to [[G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;Chesterton]], whom he regarded as a writer of considerable talent who had chosen to devote himself to "Roman Catholic propaganda",<ref>See ''[[Notes on Nationalism]]''.</ref> and to [[Evelyn Waugh]], who was, he wrote, "about as good a novelist as one can be (i.e. as novelists go today) while holding untenable opinions".<ref>''Orwell: Essays, Journalism and Letters'', Vol.&nbsp;4, eds. Sonia Brownell and Ian Angus, p.&nbsp;576.</ref>

===Literary critic===
Throughout his life Orwell continually supported himself as a book-reviewer. His reviews are well known and have had an influence on literary criticism. He wrote in the conclusion to his 1940 essay on [[Charles Dickens]]:<ref>{{cite web |last1=Orwell |first1=George |title=Charles Dickens |url=http://www.george-orwell.org/Charles_Dickens/0.html |website=george-orwell.org |access-date=17 January 2019}}</ref>
{{blockquote|
When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page. It is not necessarily the actual face of the writer. I feel this very strongly with [[Jonathon Swift|Swift]], with [[Daniel Defoe|Defoe]], with [[Henry Fielding|Fielding]], [[Stendhal]], [[William Makepeace Thackeray|Thackeray]], [[Gustave Flaubert|Flaubert]], though in several cases I do not know what these people looked like and do not want to know. What one sees is the face that the writer ought to have. Well, in the case of Dickens I see a face that is not quite the face of Dickens's photographs, though it resembles it. It is the face of a man of about forty, with a small beard and a high colour. He is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry—in other words, of a nineteenth-century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.
}}

[[George Woodcock]] suggested that the last two sentences also describe Orwell.<ref>George Woodcock Introduction to Stephen Wadhams, ''Remembering Orwell'', Penguin, 1984.</ref>

Orwell wrote a critique of [[George Bernard Shaw]]'s play ''[[Arms and the Man#Critical acclaim|Arms and the Man]]''. He considered this Shaw's best play and the most likely to remain socially relevant. His 1945 essay ''In Defence of P.&nbsp;G.&nbsp;Wodehouse'' argues that his broadcasts from Germany during the war did not really make him a traitor. He accused the [[Ministry of Information (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Information]] of exaggerating Wodehouse's actions for propaganda purposes.

=== Food writing ===
In 1946, the [[British Council]] commissioned Orwell to write an essay on British food as part of a drive to promote British relations abroad.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|agency=BBC|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47155257|title=Orwell gets apology for rejected food essay|date=7 February 2019|access-date=7 February 2019|language=en-GB}}</ref> In his essay titled "British Cookery", Orwell described the British diet as "a simple, rather heavy, perhaps slightly barbarous diet" and where "hot drinks are acceptable at most hours of the day".<ref name=":0"/> He wrote that [[Tea in the United Kingdom|high tea in the United Kingdom]] consisted of a variety of savoury and sweet dishes, but "no tea would be considered a good one if it did not include at least one kind of cake", before adding "as well as cakes, [[Biscuit#Confectionery biscuits|biscuit]]s are much eaten at tea-time".<ref name=":0"/><ref>{{cite news |title=British Cookery |url=https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/british-cookery/ |access-date=20 August 2021 |work=Orwell Foundation}}</ref> Orwell included his own recipe for [[marmalade]], a popular British spread on toast.<ref name=":0"/> However, the British Council declined to publish the essay on the grounds that it was too problematic to write about food at the time of [[Rationing in the United Kingdom|strict rationing in the UK]] following the war. In 2019, the essay was discovered in the British Council's archives along with the rejection letter. The British Council issued an official apology to Orwell over the rejection of the commissioned essay, publishing the original essay along with the rejection letter.<ref name=":0" />

==Personal life==

===Childhood===
[[Jacintha Buddicom]]'s account, ''Eric & Us'', provides an insight into Blair's childhood.<ref name=autogenerated4>Jacintha Buddicom ''Eric & Us'' Frewin 1974.</ref> She quoted his sister Avril that "he was essentially an aloof, undemonstrative person" and said herself of his friendship with the Buddicoms: "I do not think he needed any other friends beyond the schoolfriend he occasionally and appreciatively referred to as 'CC'". She could not recall him having schoolfriends to stay and exchange visits as her brother Prosper often did in holidays.<ref>remembering Orwell, p. 22</ref> [[Cyril Connolly]] provides an account of Blair as a child in ''[[Enemies of Promise]]''.<ref name=Connolly>{{cite book |author=Connolly, Cyril |author-link=Cyril Connolly |title=Enemies of Promise |orig-date= 1938 |year=1973 |publisher=Deutsch |location=London |isbn=978-0233964881}}</ref> Years later, Blair mordantly recalled his prep school in the essay "[[Such, Such Were the Joys]]", claiming among other things that he "was made to study like a dog" to earn a scholarship. Jacintha Buddicom repudiated Orwell's schoolboy misery described in the essay, stating that "he was a specially happy child". She noted that he did not like his name because it reminded him of a book he greatly disliked—''[[Eric, or, Little by Little]]'', a Victorian boys' school story.<ref>Orwell Remembered, p. 23</ref>
[[File:Eton College front 4.jpg|alt=A large gothic facade|thumb|Orwell's time at Eton College was formative in his attitude and his later career as a writer.]]
Connolly remarked of him as a schoolboy, "The remarkable thing about Orwell was that alone among the boys he was an intellectual and not a parrot for he thought for himself".<ref name=Connolly/> At Eton, [[John Vaughan Wilkes]], his former headmaster's son at St Cyprians, recalled that "he was extremely argumentative—about anything—and criticising the masters and criticising the other boys&nbsp;[...] We enjoyed arguing with him. He would generally win the arguments—or think he had anyhow."<ref>John Wilkes in Stephen Wadham's ''Remembering Orwell'' Penguin Books 1984.</ref>

Blair liked to carry out practical jokes. Buddicom recalls him swinging from the luggage rack in a railway carriage like an orangutan to frighten a woman passenger out of the compartment.<ref name="autogenerated1"/> At Eton, he played tricks on John Crace, his [[Master in College|housemaster]], among which was to enter a spoof advertisement in a college magazine implying pederasty.<ref>{{cite book |author=Hollis, Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hollis (politician) |title=A study of George Orwell: The man and his works |publisher=Hollis & Carter |location=London |year=1956 |oclc=2742921}}</ref> Gow, his tutor, said he "made himself as big a nuisance as he could" and "was a very unattractive boy".<ref>Crick (1982), p. 116</ref> Later Blair was expelled from the [[Cram school|crammer]] at Southwold for sending a dead rat as a birthday present to the town surveyor.<ref name="autogenerated1984">Audrey Coppard and Bernard Crick ''Orwell Remembered'' 1984</ref>

Blair had an interest in natural history which stemmed from his childhood. In letters from school he wrote about caterpillars and butterflies,<ref name="Crick-S&W">{{cite book |author=Crick, Bernard |title=George Orwell: A Life |publisher=Secker & Warburg |year=1980 |location=London |isbn=978-0436114502}}</ref> and Buddicom recalls his keen interest in ornithology. He also enjoyed fishing and shooting rabbits, and conducting experiments as in cooking a hedgehog<ref name="autogenerated1"/> or shooting down a jackdaw from the Eton roof to dissect it.<ref name=Mynors>Roger Mynors in Stephen Wadhams ''Remembering Orwell'' Penguin Books 1984.</ref> His zeal for scientific experiments extended to explosives—again Buddicom recalls a cook giving notice because of the noise. Later in Southwold, his sister Avril recalled him blowing up the garden. When teaching he enthused his students with his nature-rambles both at Southwold<ref>Peters, R.S. "A Boy's View of George Orwell" in ''Psychology and Ethical Development''. Allen & Unwin, 1974.</ref> and at Hayes.<ref>Geoffrey Stevens in Stephen Wadham's ''Remembering Orwell''. Penguin, 1984.</ref> His adult diaries are permeated with his observations on nature.

===Relationships and marriage===
Blair's adolescent idyll with Buddicom was shattered in the summer of 1921, when he attempted to take their relationship further than Buddicom was ready for, in what was characterised as a ''botched seduction''.<ref name="hughes">{{cite web|last=Hughes|first=Kathryn|author-link=Kathryn Hughes|date=18 February 2007|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/feb/17/georgeorwell.biography|title=Such were the joys|work=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=25 June 2024}}</ref> When Blair left for Burma the following year, he wrote to Buddicom but she soon stopped replying to his letters.<ref name="postscript">{{cite book |last1=Buddicom |first1=Jacintha |title=Eric & Us |date=2006 |publisher=Finlay Publisher |location=Chichester |isbn=978-0955370809}}</ref> Returning from Burma in 1927, Blair went in search of Buddicom at her family home to ask her to marry him but could not find her.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Davison |first1=Peter |title=Orwell – A Life in Letters |date=27 January 2011 |publisher=Penguin Classics |isbn=978-0141192635 |pages=576}}</ref> What had been ''a very serious business indeed'' for Blair had apparently been dismissed by Buddicom, leaving Blair potentially emotionally vulnerable.<ref name="Times Media Limited"/> Buddicom and Blair revisited those memories briefly in 1949 in three letters and three telephone calls but without closure.<ref name = Pathway>{{cite journal |last1=Loftus |first1=Guy |title=A Pathway to Orwell |journal=The Orwell Society Journal |date=September 2024 |volume=24 |pages=32–36}}</ref>

Mabel Fierz, who later became Blair's confidante, said: "He used to say the one thing he wished in this world was that he'd been attractive to women. He liked women and had many girlfriends I think in Burma. He had a girl in Southwold and another girl in London. He was rather a womaniser, yet he was afraid he wasn't attractive."<ref name=autogenerated6>Stephen Wadhams ''Remembering Orwell'' Penguin Books 1984</ref>

Brenda Salkield (Southwold) preferred friendship to any deeper relationship and maintained a correspondence with Blair for many years, particularly as a sounding board for his ideas. She wrote: "He was a great letter writer. Endless letters, and I mean when he wrote you a letter he wrote pages."<ref name=Wadhams/> His correspondence with Eleanor Jacques (London) was more prosaic, dwelling on a closer relationship and referring to past rendezvous or planning future ones in London and [[Burnham Beeches]].<ref>Correspondence in ''Collected Essays Journalism and Letters'', Secker & Warburg, 1968.</ref>

[[File:Richard Blair 1.jpg|thumb|right|Orwell's adopted son [[Richard Blair (patron)|Richard]] in 2018 reciting his father's work at his graveside during an annual visit to All Saints' churchyard, Sutton Courtenay]]

When Orwell was in the sanatorium in Kent, his wife Eileen's friend Lydia Jackson visited. He invited her for a walk and out of sight "an awkward situation arose."<ref>Davison, Peter (ed.). ''George Orwell: Complete Works'' XI 336.</ref> Jackson was to be the most critical of Orwell's marriage to Eileen, but their later correspondence hints at a complicity. At the time Eileen was more concerned about Orwell's closeness to Brenda Salkield. Orwell had an affair with his secretary at ''Tribune'' which caused Eileen much distress, and others have been mooted. In a letter to Ann Popham he wrote: "I was sometimes unfaithful to Eileen, and I also treated her badly, and I think she treated me badly, too, at times, but it was a real marriage, in the sense that we had been through awful struggles together and she understood all about my work, etc."<ref>Crick (1982), p. 480</ref> Similarly he suggested to Celia Kirwan that they had both been unfaithful.<ref>Celia Goodman interview with Shelden June 1989 in Michael Shelden ''Orwell: The Authorised Biography''</ref> There are several testaments that it was a well-matched and happy marriage.<ref name=Dakin>Henry Dakin in Stephen Wadhams ''Remembering Orwell''</ref><ref name=Donahue>Patrica Donahue in Stephen Wadhams ''Remembering Orwell''</ref><ref>Meyer, Michael. ''Not Prince Hamlet: Literary and Theatrical Memoirs'' 1989</ref>

In June 1944, Orwell and Eileen adopted a three-week-old boy they named [[Richard Blair (patron)|Richard Horatio]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Lost Orwell|first=Peter|last=Davison|author-link=Peter Davison (professor)|page=244|publisher=Timewell Press|year=2007|isbn=978-1857252149}}</ref> According to Richard, Orwell was a wonderful father who gave him devoted, if rather rugged, attention and a great degree of freedom.<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/george-packer/orwell-and-son|title=Orwell and Son|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=2 September 2017|date=25 March 2009}}</ref>

Orwell was very lonely after Eileen's death in 1945 and was desperate for a wife, both as companion for himself and as mother for Richard. He proposed marriage to four women, including Celia Kirwan, and eventually [[Sonia Brownell]] accepted.<ref>Spurling, Hilary. 2002. ''The girl from the Fiction Department: a portrait of Sonia Orwell.'' New York: Counterpoint, p. 96.</ref> Orwell had met her when she was assistant to Cyril Connolly, at ''[[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]]'' literary magazine.<ref>Crick (1982), p. 449</ref> They were married on 13 October 1949, only three months before Orwell's death. Some maintain that Sonia was the model for Julia in ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''.

===Social interactions===
Orwell was noted for very close and enduring friendships with a few friends, but these were generally people with a similar background or with a similar level of literary ability. Ungregarious, he was out of place in a crowd and his discomfort was exacerbated when he was outside his own class. Though representing himself as a spokesman for the common man, he often appeared out of place with real working people. His brother-in-law Humphrey Dakin, a [[Hail fellow well met|"Hail fellow, well met"]] type, who took him to a local pub in Leeds, said that he was told by the landlord: "Don't bring that bugger in here again."<ref>Ian Angus Interview 23–25 April 1965 quoted in Stansky and Abrahams ''The Unknown George Orwell''</ref> Adrian Fierz commented "He wasn't interested in racing or greyhounds or pub crawling or [[shove ha'penny]]. He just did not have much in common with people who did not share his intellectual interests."<ref>Adrian Fierz in Stephen Wadhams ''Remembering Orwell''</ref> Awkwardness attended many of his encounters with working-class representatives, as with Pollitt and McNair,<ref>John McNair ''George Orwell: The Man I knew'' MA Thesis – Newcastle University Library 1965, quoted Crick (1982), p. 317</ref> but his courtesy and good manners were often commented on. [[Jack Common]] observed on meeting him for the first time, "Right away manners, and more than manners—breeding—showed through."<ref>Jack Common Collection Newcastle University Library quoted in Crick (1982), p. 204</ref>

In his tramping days, he did domestic work for a time. His extreme politeness was recalled by a member of the family he worked for; she declared that the family referred to him as "[[Stan Laurel|Laurel]]" after the film comedian.<ref name="autogenerated1996"/> With his gangling figure and awkwardness, Orwell's friends often saw him as a figure of fun. [[Geoffrey Gorer]] commented "He was awfully likely to knock things off tables, trip over things. I mean, he was a gangling, physically badly co-ordinated young man. I think his feeling [was] that even the inanimate world was against him."<ref>Geoffrey Gorer&nbsp;– recorded for Melvyn Bragg BBC Omnibus production ''The Road to the Left'' 1970</ref> At the BBC in the 1940s, "everybody would pull his leg"<ref name =Wilshin>Sunday Wilshin in Stephen Wadhams ''Remembering Orwell'' Penguin Books 1984</ref> and Spender described him as having real entertainment value "like, as I say, watching a Charlie Chaplin movie".<ref>Stephen Spender in Stephen Wadhams ''Remembering Orwell'' Penguin Books 1984</ref> A friend of Eileen's reminisced about her tolerance and humour, often at Orwell's expense.<ref name=Donahue/>

One biography of Orwell accused him of having had an authoritarian streak.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780805076936-1 |title=Powell's Books&nbsp;– Synopses and Reviews of D J Taylor ''Orwell: The Life'' |publisher=Powells.com |date=12 October 2010 |access-date=21 October 2010 |archive-date=29 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190529115656/http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780805076936-1 |url-status=dead }}</ref> One of his former pupils recalled [[school corporal punishment|being beaten]] so hard he could not sit down for a week.<ref>Interview with Geoffrey Stevens, Crick (1982), pp. 222–223</ref> When sharing a flat with Orwell, Heppenstall came home late one night in an advanced stage of loud inebriation. The upshot was that Heppenstall ended up with a bloody nose and was locked in a room. When he complained, Orwell hit him across the legs with a [[shooting stick]] and Heppenstall then had to defend himself with a chair. Years later, after Orwell's death, Heppenstall wrote a dramatic account of the incident called "The Shooting Stick".<ref>Heppenstall ''The Shooting Stick'' Twentieth Century April 1955</ref>

Orwell got on well with young people. The pupil he beat considered him the best of teachers and the young recruits in Barcelona tried to drink him under the table without success.<ref name= Dakin/>

In the wake of his most famous works, he attracted many uncritical hangers-on, but many others who sought him found him aloof and even dull. With his soft voice, he was sometimes shouted down or excluded from discussions.<ref>Michael Meyer ''Not Prince Hamlet: Literary and Theatrical Memoirs'' Secker and Warburg 1989</ref> At this time, he was severely ill; it was wartime or the austerity period after it; during the war his wife suffered from depression; and after her death he was lonely and unhappy. In addition to that, he always lived frugally and seemed unable to care for himself properly. As a result of all this, people found his circumstances bleak.<ref>T.R. Fyval ''George Orwell: A Personal Memoir'' 1982</ref> Some, like [[Michael Ayrton]], called him "Gloomy George", but others developed the idea that he was an "English [[secular saint]]".<ref>{{cite news|first=Robert |last=McCrum |author-link=Robert McCrum |title=George Orwell was no fan of the News of the World |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/jul/14/george-orwell-news-world |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=14 July 2011|access-date=7 May 2018}}</ref>

===Lifestyle===
Orwell was a heavy smoker, who rolled his own cigarettes from strong [[Shag (tobacco)|shag tobacco]], despite his bronchial condition. His penchant for the rugged life often took him to cold and damp situations. Described by ''The Economist'' as "perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of [[Culture of England|English culture]]",<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11826680 |title=Still the Moon Under Water |newspaper=The Economist |location =London |date=28 July 2009}}</ref> Orwell considered [[fish and chips]], [[association football|football]], the [[pub]], strong tea, cut-price chocolate, [[Cinema of the United Kingdom|the movies]], and radio among the chief comforts for the working class.<ref>{{cite book |author=Dewey, Peter |date=2014 |title=War and Progress: Britain 1914–1945 |page=325 |publisher=Routledge}}</ref> He advocated a patriotic defence of a British way of life that could not be trusted to intellectuals or, by implication, the state:<ref>{{cite book |title=The Complete Works of George Orwell: A patriot after all, 1940–1941 |date=1998 |publisher=Secker & Warburg |page=294}}</ref>
{{blockquote|
We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. All the culture that is most truly native centres round things which even when they are communal are not official—the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the "nice cup of tea". The liberty of the individual is still believed in, almost as in the nineteenth century. But this has nothing to do with economic liberty, the right to exploit others for profit. It is the liberty to have a home of your own, to do what you like in your spare time, to choose your own amusements instead of having them chosen for you from above.
}}

{{Quote box
| quote = By putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk, whereas one is likely to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.
| source = One of Orwell's eleven rules for making tea from his essay "[[A Nice Cup of Tea]]", which appeared in the ''[[Evening Standard|London Evening Standard]]'', 12 January 1946<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jun/25/science.highereducation "How to make a perfect cuppa: put milk in first"]. ''The Guardian'' (London). Retrieved 30 December 2014.</ref>
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Orwell enjoyed strong tea—he had [[Fortnum & Mason]]'s tea brought to him in Catalonia.<ref name=Taylor/> His 1946 essay "[[A Nice Cup of Tea]]", appeared in the ''[[Evening Standard|London Evening Standard]]'' article on how to [[Tea in the United Kingdom|make tea]].<ref>{{cite book |author1=Orwell, George |author2=Angus, Ian |author3=Davison, Sheila |date=1998 |title=The Complete Works of George Orwell: Smothered under journalism |orig-date=1946 |page=34 |publisher=Secker & Warburg}}</ref> He appreciated English beer, taken regularly and moderately, despised drinkers of [[lager]],<ref>Lettice Cooper in Stephen Wadhams, ''Remembering Orwell'', Penguin Books, 1984.</ref> and wrote about an imagined, ideal [[Pub|British pub]] in his 1946 ''Evening Standard'' article "[[The Moon Under Water]]".<ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-moon-under-water/ |first=George |last=Orwell |title=The Moon Under Water |journal=[[Evening Standard]] |date=9 February 1946 |access-date=24 June 2013 |archive-date=7 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130807034239/http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-moon-under-water/ |url-status=dead}}</ref> Not as particular about food, he enjoyed the wartime "Victory Pie"<ref>Julian Symonds in Stephen Wadhams, ''Remembering Orwell'', Penguin Books, 1984.</ref> and extolled canteen food at the BBC.<ref name=Wilshin/> He preferred traditional English dishes, such as [[roast beef]], and [[kipper]]s.<ref>Crick (1982), p. 502.</ref>

His dress sense was unpredictable and usually casual.<ref>Crick (1982), p. 504.</ref> In Southwold, he had the best cloth from the local tailor,<ref>Jack Denny, in: Stephen Wadhams, ''Remembering Orwell'', Penguin Books, 1984.</ref> but was equally happy in his tramping outfit. His attire in the Spanish Civil War, along with his size-12 boots, was a source of amusement.<ref>Bob Edwards, in: Audrey Coppard and Bernard Crick, ''Orwell Remembered'', 1984.</ref><ref>Jennie Lee, in: Peter Davison, ''Complete Works'', XI, 5.</ref> David Astor described him as looking like a prep school master,<ref>David Astor Interview, in Michael Shelden.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=June 2025}} while according to the Special Branch dossier, Orwell's tendency to dress "in Bohemian fashion" revealed that the author was "a Communist".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/07/opinion/edorwell.php |title=Watching Orwell – International Herald Tribune |access-date=23 December 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080914180341/http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/07/opinion/edorwell.php |archive-date=14 September 2008}}</ref>

Orwell's confusing approach to matters of social decorum—on the one hand expecting a working-class guest to dress for dinner<ref>Jack Braithwaite, in: Wadhams, ''Remembering Orwell'', Penguin Books, 1984.</ref> and, on the other, slurping tea out of a saucer at the BBC canteen<ref>John Morris, "Some are more equal than others", ''Penguin New Writing'', No.&nbsp;40, 1950.</ref>—helped stoke his reputation as an English eccentric.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/18/in-search-of-english-eccentric |title=Review: In Search of the English Eccentric by Henry Hemming |last=Pindar |first=Ian |date=17 April 2009 |newspaper=The Guardian |language=en |access-date=19 September 2018}}</ref>

==Views==
===Religion===
[[File:Graves of Astor and Orwell, All Saints, Sutton Courtenay - geograph.org.uk - 362296.jpg|alt=A small row of gravestones|thumb|Orwell was an atheist and a robust critic of Christianity. Nevertheless, he was sentimentally attached to church services, and was buried in All Saints' parish churchyard in [[Sutton Courtenay]], Oxfordshire.]]
Orwell was an [[Atheism|atheist]] who identified himself with the [[humanism|humanist]] outlook on life.<ref>{{cite web
 |last = Gray
 |first =Robert
 |title = Orwell vs God – A very Christian atheist
 |work=The Spectator |location=UK |date=11 June 2011
|url = https://www.spectator.co.uk/2011/06/orwell-vs-god/
 |access-date =2 November 2017}}</ref> Despite this, and despite his criticisms of both religious doctrine and religious organisations, he nevertheless regularly participated in the social and civic life of the church, including by attending [[Church of England]] Holy Communion.<ref>Cushman, Thomas and John Rodden (eds.), ''George Orwell: Into the Twenty-first Century'' (2004), p. 98.</ref> Acknowledging this contradiction, he once said: "It seems rather mean to go to HC [Holy Communion] when one doesn't believe, but I have passed myself off for pious & there is nothing for it but to keep up with the deception."<ref>"Letter to Eleanor Jaques, 19 October 1932" in ''The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: An Age Like This'', ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus. Harcourt, Brace & World Inc. New York, 1968. p. 102</ref> He had two [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] marriages and left instructions for an Anglican funeral.<ref>Why Orwell Matters (2003), p. 123</ref> Orwell was also well-read in Biblical literature and could quote lengthy passages from the [[Book of Common Prayer]] from memory.<ref>''A Patriot After All, 1940–1941'', p. xxvi, Secker & Warburg 1998 {{ISBN|0436205408}}</ref>

His extensive knowledge of the [[Bible]] came coupled with unsparing criticism of its philosophy, and as an adult he could not bring himself to believe in its tenets. He said in part V of his essay, "[[Such, Such Were the Joys]]", that "Till about the age of fourteen I believed in God, and believed that the accounts given of him were true. But I was well aware that I did not love him."<ref>{{cite web|last=Orwell|first=George|title=Such, Such Were the Joys|url=http://georgeorwellnovels.com/essays/such-such-were-the-joys/|access-date=23 November 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140203141422/http://georgeorwellnovels.com/essays/such-such-were-the-joys/|archive-date=3 February 2014}}</ref> Orwell directly contrasted Christianity with [[secular humanism]] in his essay "[[Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool]]", finding the latter philosophy more palatable and less "self-interested". The literary critic [[James Wood (critic)|James Wood]] wrote that in the struggle, as he saw it, between Christianity and [[humanism]], "Orwell was on the humanist side, of course".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/04/13/a-fine-rage|last=Wood|first=James|author-link=James Wood (critic)|title=A Fine Rage|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|access-date=8 February 2017|date=13 April 2009}}</ref>

Orwell's writing was often explicitly critical of religion, and Christianity in particular. He found the church to be a "selfish&nbsp;[...] church of the [[landed gentry]]" with its establishment "out of touch" with the majority of its communicants and altogether a pernicious influence on public life.<ref name="Voorhees1986">{{cite book|last=Voorhees|first=Richard A.|title=The paradox of George Orwell|year=1986|publisher=Purdue University Press|location=West Lafayette, Ind|isbn=978-0911198805|pages=18–19}}</ref> His contradictory and sometimes ambiguous views about the social benefits of religious affiliation mirrored the dichotomies between his public and private lives: Stephen Ingle wrote that it was as if the writer George Orwell "vaunted" his unbelief while Eric Blair the individual retained "a deeply ingrained religiosity".<ref name=autogenerated5>{{cite book|last=Ingle|first=Stephen|title=George Orwell: a political life|year=1993|publisher=Manchester University Press|location=Manchester, England|isbn=978-0719032332|page=110}}</ref>

===Politics===
Orwell liked to provoke arguments by challenging the status quo, but he was also a [[tradition]]alist with a love of old [[English values]]. He criticised and satirised, from the inside, the various social milieux in which he found himself. In his ''Adelphi'' days, he described himself as a "[[Toryism|Tory]]-[[Anarchism|anarchist]]".<ref>{{Cite book |first = Richard |last = Rees |title = Orwell: Fugitive from the Camp of Victory |publisher = Secker & Warburg |year = 1961}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |first = Rayner |last = Heppenstall |title = Four Absentees |publisher = Barrie & Rockcliff |year = 1960}}</ref> Of [[colonialism]] in ''Burmese Days'', he portrays the [[English colonist]]s as a "dull, decent people, cherishing and fortifying their dullness behind a quarter of a million bayonets".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Orwell |first1=George |title=Burmese Days |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=56}}</ref> Writing for ''Le Progrès Civique'', Orwell described the [[British Raj|British colonial government]] in Burma and India:<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Orwell |first1=George |title=Comment on exploite un peuple: L'Empire britannique en Birmanie |trans-title=How a Nation Is Exploited – The British Empire in Burma |url=https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/how-a-nation-is-exploited-the-british-empire-in-burma/ |via=Orwell Foundation |journal=Le Progrès Civique |date=4 May 1929 |issue=CW 86 |translator1-first=Janet |translator1-last=Percival |translator2-first=Ian |translator2-last=Willison}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|
The government of all the Indian provinces under the control of the [[British Empire]] is of necessity despotic, because only the threat of force can subdue a population of several million subjects. But this [[despotism]] is latent. It hides behind a mask of democracy... Care is taken to avoid technical and industrial training. This rule, observed throughout India, aims to stop India from becoming an industrial country capable of competing with England&nbsp;... Foreign competition is prevented by an insuperable barrier of prohibitive customs tariffs. And so the English factory-owners, with nothing to fear, control the markets absolutely and reap exorbitant profits.
}}
[[File:Logo of the Independent Labour Party.svg|alt=The letters "ISLP" in white on a red circle|thumb|upright|Orwell joined the British [[Independent Labour Party]] during his time in the [[Spanish Civil War]] and became a defender of [[democratic socialism]] and a critic of [[totalitarianism]] for the rest of his life.]]
The Spanish Civil War played the most important part in defining Orwell's socialism. He wrote to Cyril Connolly from Barcelona on 8 June 1937: "I have seen wonderful things and at last really believe in Socialism, which I never did before."<ref>{{Citation |first = Cyril |last = Connolly |contribution = George Orwell 3 |title = The Evening Colonnade |publisher = David Bruce & Watson |year = 1973 |title-link = The Evening Colonnade }}.</ref><ref>{{Citation |title = The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters |first = George |last = Orwell |volume = 1&nbsp;– An Age Like This 1945–1950 |page = 301 |publisher = Penguin}}.</ref> Having witnessed [[Anarcho-syndicalism|anarcho-syndicalist]] communities and the subsequent brutal suppression of the anarcho-syndicalists, anti-Stalin communist parties and revolutionaries by the Soviet Union-backed Communists, Orwell returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-[[Stalinism|Stalinist]] and joined the British [[Independent Labour Party]].<ref>Crick (1982), p. 364.</ref>

In Part 2 of ''The Road to Wigan Pier'', published by the [[Left Book Club]], Orwell stated that "a real Socialist is one who wishes—not merely conceives it as desirable, but actively wishes—to see tyranny overthrown." Orwell stated in "Why I Write" (1946): "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against [[totalitarianism]] and for [[democratic socialism]], as I understand it."<ref name=whyiwrite/> Orwell's conception of socialism was of a planned economy alongside democracy.<ref>{{cite book |last=Steele |first=David Ramsay |year=2017 |title=Orwell Your Orwell: A Worldview on the Slab |publisher=St. Augustines Press |page= |isbn= 978-1587316104 |quote=For Orwell, socialism is a planned society by definition, as contrasted with capitalism, which is by definition unplanned. So closely was socialism identified with planning that socialists would sometimes use a phrase like 'a planned society' as a synonym for socialism, and Orwell himself does this too&nbsp;... Democracy too is part of Orwell's picture of socialism, though when he employs the term 'democracy', he is usually referring to civil liberties rather than to decisions by majority vote—not that he rejects majoritarian rule, but that when he talks about 'democracy,' this is not uppermost in his mind.}}</ref>{{page needed|date=June 2025}} Orwell was a proponent of a federal socialist Europe, a position outlined in his 1947 essay "[[Toward European Unity]]", which first appeared in ''[[Partisan Review]]''. According to biographer [[John Newsinger]]:<ref name="newsinger"/>
{{Blockquote|
The other crucial dimension to Orwell's socialism was his recognition that the Soviet Union was not socialist. Unlike many on the left, instead of abandoning socialism once he discovered the full horror of Stalinist rule in the Soviet Union, Orwell abandoned the Soviet Union and instead remained a socialist—indeed he became more committed to the socialist cause than ever.
}}

Orwell was opposed to rearmament against [[Nazi Germany]] and at the time of the [[Munich Agreement]] signed a manifesto entitled "If War Comes We Shall Resist,"<ref>{{cite news |title=The reluctant patriot: how George Orwell reconciled himself with England |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/12/reluctant-patriot |work=New Statesman |date=6 January 2014 |access-date=3 February 2019 |archive-date=8 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210508171253/https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/12/reluctant-patriot |url-status=dead }}</ref>—but he changed his view after the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] and the outbreak of the war. He left the ILP because of its opposition to the war and adopted a political position of "revolutionary patriotism." On 21&nbsp;March 1940 Orwell wrote a review of [[Adolf Hitler]]'s ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' for ''[[The New English Weekly]]'', in which he analysed the dictator's psychology. Asking "how was it that he was able to put [his] monstrous vision across?," Orwell tried to understand why Hitler was worshipped by the German people:<ref>{{Cite web |last=Orwell |first=George |url=https://bookmarks.reviews/george-orwells-1940-review-of-mein-kampf/ |title=George Orwell's 1940 Review of 'Mein Kampf' |date=21 March 1940 |work=New English Weekly |access-date=29 September 2021 }}</ref>
<blockquote>
The situation in Germany, with its seven million unemployed, was obviously favourable for demagogues. But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of ''Mein Kampf'', and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches&nbsp;... The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, [[Prometheus]] chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon.
</blockquote>

In December 1940 he wrote in ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' (the Labour left's weekly): "We are in a strange period of history in which a [[revolutionary]] has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary." During the war, Orwell was highly critical of the popular idea that an Anglo-Soviet alliance would be the basis of a post-war world of peace and prosperity.<ref>{{cite web |last = Collini |first =Stefan |title = E.H. Carr: Historian of the Future |work=The Times |location=UK |date=5 March 2008 |url = http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3490032.ece |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080516030341/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3490032.ece |url-status = dead |archive-date = 16 May 2008 |access-date =9 November 2008}}</ref> In his reply (dated 15 November 1945) to an invitation from the [[Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl|Duchess of Atholl]] to speak for the British League for European Freedom, he stated that he could not "associate himself with an essentially Conservative body" that claimed to "defend democracy in Europe" but had "nothing to say about [[British imperialism]]". His closing paragraph stated: "I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian [[totalitarianism]] and its poisonous influence in this country."<ref name="In Front of Your Nose">Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds.). ''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume&nbsp;4: In Front of Your Nose (1945–1950)'' (Penguin).</ref>

Orwell joined the staff of ''Tribune'' magazine as literary editor, and from then until his death, was a left-wing (though hardly orthodox) Labour-supporting [[democratic socialist]].<ref name="Woodcock1984">{{Cite book |last=Woodcock |first=George |author-link=George Woodcock |title=The crystal spirit: a study of George Orwell |year=1967 |publisher=Jonathan Cape |location=London |isbn=978-0947795054 |page=247}}</ref> On 1 September 1944, writing about the [[Warsaw uprising]], Orwell expressed in ''Tribune'' his hostility against the influence of the alliance with the USSR over the allies: "Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Do not imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking [[propagandist]] of the sovietic regime, or any other regime, and then suddenly return to honesty and reason. Once a whore, always a whore."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Orwell |first=George |date=1 September 1944 |title=As I please |url=https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/tribune/AsIPlease19440901.html |work=Tribune |pages=15}}</ref> According to Newsinger, although Orwell "was always critical of the 1945–51 Labour government's moderation, his support for it began to pull him to the right politically. This did not lead him to embrace conservatism, [[imperialism]] or reaction, but to defend, albeit critically, Labour reformism."<ref name=autogenerated2>{{cite web |url=http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr276/newsinger.htm |title=John Newsinger in ''Socialist Review'' Issue 276 July/August 2003 |publisher=Pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk |access-date=21 October 2010 |archive-date=13 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181013191304/http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr276/newsinger.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>
[[Special Branch (Metropolitan Police)|Special Branch]], the intelligence division of the [[Metropolitan Police]], maintained a file on Orwell for more than 20 years of his life. The dossier, published by [[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]], states that, according to one investigator, Orwell had "advanced Communist views and several of his Indian friends say that they have often seen him at Communist meetings".<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/sep/04/booksnews.nationalarchives |title=Odd clothes and unorthodox views&nbsp;– why MI5 spied on Orwell for a decade |last=Bates |first=Stephen |date=4 September 2007 |newspaper=The Guardian |language=en |access-date=19 September 2018}}</ref> [[MI5]], the intelligence department of the [[Home Office]], noted: "It is evident from his recent writings—'The Lion and the Unicorn'—and his contribution to Gollancz's symposium ''The Betrayal of the Left'' that he does not hold with the Communist Party nor they with him."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6976576.stm |title=MI5 confused by Orwell's politics |date=4 September 2007 |work=BBC News |access-date=22 November 2008}}</ref>

=== Sexuality ===
Sexual politics plays an important role in ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. In the novel, people's intimate relationships are strictly governed by the party's Junior Anti-Sex League, by opposing sexual relations and instead encouraging [[artificial insemination]].<ref>[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/095892300102452 "We are the dead ... you are the dead". An examination of sexuality as a weapon of revolt in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four]. ''Journal of Gender Studies''. Retrieved 21 December 2018</ref> Personally, Orwell disliked what he thought as misguided middle-class revolutionary [[Emancipation|emancipatory]] views, expressing disdain for "every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniacs".<ref>[https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/nineteen-eighty-four-and-the-politics-of-dystopia "Nineteen Eighty-Four and the politics of dystopia"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308004754/https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/nineteen-eighty-four-and-the-politics-of-dystopia|date=8 March 2021}}. British Library. Retrieved 21 December 2018</ref>

Orwell was also openly against [[homosexuality]]. [[Daphne Patai]] said: "Of course he was homophobic. That has nothing to do with his relations with his homosexual friends. Certainly, he had a negative attitude and a certain kind of anxiety, a denigrating attitude towards homosexuality. That is definitely the case. I think his writing reflects that quite fully."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rodden |first1=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UlnwITCGcw8C&pg=PA162 |title=Every Intellectual's Big Brother: George Orwell's Literary Siblings |date=2006 |publisher=University of Texas Press, Austin |isbn=978-0292774537 |page=162}}</ref>

Orwell used the [[homophobic]] [[epithet]]s "nancy" and "pansy", for example, in expressions of contempt for what he called the "pansy Left".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sharp |first1=Tony |title=W H Auden in Context |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=95}}</ref> The protagonist of ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying,'' Gordon Comstock, conducts an internal critique of his customers when working in a bookshop, and there is an extended passage of several pages in which he concentrates on a gay male customer, sneering at him for his "nancy" characteristics, including  [[Speech sound disorder#Rhotacism|rhotacism]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Orwell |first1=George |url=https://archive.org/details/keepaspidistrafl0000orwe |title=Keep The Aspidistra Flying |publisher=Secker & Warburg |year=1987 |isbn=978-0436350269 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Stephen Spender "thought Orwell's occasional homophobic outbursts were part of his rebellion against the public school".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bowker |first1=Gordon |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780312238414 |title=George Orwell |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2003 |isbn=978-0312238414 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

==Legacy==
===Reception and evaluations of Orwell's works===
[[File:The Playhouse 1984 London Cinema Marquee.jpg|thumb|right|Production of the play ''[[1984 (play)|1984]]'' at the [[Playhouse Theatre]] in the [[West End theatre|West End]]. Orwell's works have been adapted for stage, screen and television. They have also inspired commercials and songs, and he is often quoted. Historian John Rodden called him a "cultural icon".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rodden |first1=John |title=The Unexamined Orwell |date=2012 |publisher=University of Texas Press |page=4}}</ref>]]
Arthur Koestler said that Orwell's "uncompromising intellectual honesty made him appear almost inhuman at times".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.orwelltoday.com/orwellpersona.shtml|title=5.Orwell's Persona|website=orwelltoday.com}}</ref> [[Ben Wattenberg]] stated: "Orwell's writing pierced intellectual hypocrisy wherever he found it."<ref name="thinktank">{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript990.html|title=PBS: Think Tank: Transcript for 'Orwell's Century'|publisher=PBS|access-date=25 February 2015}}</ref> According to historian [[Piers Brendon]], "Orwell was the saint of common decency who would in earlier days, said his BBC boss [[Rushbrook Williams]], 'have been either canonised—or burnt at the stake{{'"}}.<ref>{{Cite news|newspaper=The Guardian |location=UK |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jun/07/biography.georgeorwell|title=The saint of common decency|first=Piers|last=Brendon|date=7 June 2003}}</ref> [[Raymond Williams]] in ''[[Politics and Letters: Interviews with New Left Review]]'' describes Orwell as a "successful impersonation of a plain man who bumps into experience in an unmediated way and tells the truth about it".<ref>Raymond Williams, ''Politics and Letters'', 1979.</ref> [[Christopher Norris (critic)|Christopher Norris]] declared that Orwell's "homespun empiricist outlook—his assumption that the truth was just there to be told in a straightforward common-sense way—now seems not merely naïve but culpably self-deluding".<ref>Christopher Norris, ''Language, Truth and Ideology: Orwell and the Post War Left'' in ''Inside the Myth: Orwell views from the Left'', Lawrence and Whishart, 1984.</ref> The American scholar Scott Lucas has described Orwell as an enemy of the Left.<ref>Lucas, Scott (2003). ''Orwell''. Haus Publishing. {{ISBN|1904341330}}.</ref> John Newsinger has argued that Lucas could only do this by portraying "all of Orwell's attacks on Stalinism&nbsp;[–] as if they were attacks on socialism, despite Orwell's continued insistence that they were not".<ref>{{cite web|author=O. Dag |url=http://orwell.ru/a_life/newsinger/english/e_oc |title=John Newsinger: Orwell Centenary: The Biographies |language=ru |publisher=Orwell.ru |access-date=14 May 2014}}</ref>

Orwell's work has taken a prominent place in the school literature curriculum in England,<ref>Rodden (1989), p. 394–395.</ref> with ''Animal Farm'' a regular examination topic at the end of secondary education ([[GCSE]]), and ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' a topic for subsequent examinations below university level ([[A&nbsp;Level]]s). A 2016 UK poll saw ''Animal Farm'' ranked the nation's favourite book from school.<ref>{{cite news |title=George Orwell's Animal Farm tops list of the nation's favourite books from school |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/george-orwells-animal-farm-tops-list-of-the-nations-favourite-books-from-school-a6994351.html |access-date=10 April 2020 |work=The Independent}}</ref>

The historian John Rodden stated: "[[John Podhoretz]] did claim that if Orwell were alive today, he'd be standing with the [[neo-conservatives]] and against the Left. And the question arises, to what extent can you even begin to predict the political positions of somebody who's been dead three decades and more by that time?"<ref name="thinktank"/>

Rodden notes the "undeniable conservative features in the Orwell physiognomy" and remarks on how "to some extent Orwell facilitated the kinds of uses and abuses by the Right that his name has been put to. In other ways there has been the politics of selective quotation."<ref name="thinktank"/> Rodden refers to the essay "[[Why I Write]]",<ref name=whyiwrite>{{Cite web |title=Why I Write |last=Orwell |first=George |website=The Orwell Foundation |publisher=Gangrel No. 4|date=Summer 1946 |url= https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/why-i-write/|quote=Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.}}</ref> in which Orwell refers to the Spanish Civil War as being his "watershed political experience", saying: "The Spanish War and other events in 1936–37, turned the scale. Thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written directly or indirectly ''against'' totalitarianism and ''for'' democratic socialism as I understand it." (emphasis in original)<ref name="thinktank"/> Rodden goes on to explain how, during the McCarthy era, the introduction to the Signet edition of ''Animal Farm'' makes use of selective quotation:<ref name="thinktank"/>
{{blockquote|
[''Introduction'']: If the book itself, ''Animal Farm'', had left any doubt of the matter, Orwell dispelled it in his essay ''Why I Write'': "Every line of serious work that I've written since 1936 has been written directly or indirectly against Totalitarianism&nbsp;...."

[''Rodden'']: dot, dot, dot, dot, the politics of ellipsis. "For Democratic Socialism" is vaporized, just like [[Winston Smith (Nineteen Eighty-Four)|Winston Smith]] did it at the [[Ministry of Truth]], and that's very much what happened at the beginning of the McCarthy era and just continued, Orwell being selectively quoted.
}}

Fyvel wrote about Orwell:<ref>Fyvel, T.R., "A Writer's Life", ''World Review'', June 1950.</ref><ref>Fyvel, T.R., "A Case for George Orwell?", ''Twentieth Century'', September 1956, pp.&nbsp;257–258.</ref>
<blockquote>
His crucial experience&nbsp;[...] was his struggle to turn himself into a writer, one which led through long periods of poverty, failure and humiliation, and about which he has written almost nothing directly. The sweat and agony was less in the slum-life than in the effort to turn the experience into literature.
</blockquote>

Conversely, the historian [[Isaac Deutscher]] was far more critical of Orwell from a [[Marxist]] perspective and characterised him as a "simple minded [[anarchist]]". Deutscher argued that Orwell had struggled to comprehend the dialectical philosophy of Marxism, demonstrated personal ambivalence towards [[Anti-Stalinist Left|other strands of socialism]] and his works such as ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' had been appropriated for the purpose of [[anti-communist]] [[Cold War]] propaganda.<ref>{{cite web |title=1984 – The Mysticism of Cruelty, by Isaac Deutscher 1955 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1955/1984.htm |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Newsinger |first1=J. |title=Orwell's Politics |date=17 January 1999 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0333983607 |page=123 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rURaCwAAQBAJ&dq=deutscher+orwell&pg=PA123 |language=en}}</ref>

===Influence on language and writing===
In his essay "[[Politics and the English Language]]" (1946), Orwell wrote about the importance of precise and clear language, arguing that vague writing can be used as a powerful tool of political manipulation. In that essay, Orwell provides six rules for writers:<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm|first = George |last = Orwell |title = Politics and the English Language |date = April 1946 |publisher = [[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]] |work = mtholyoke.edu |access-date = 15 July 2010|url-status = dead|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100715144246/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm |archive-date = 15 July 2010 |df = dmy}}</ref>
{{blockquote|
# Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
# Never use a long word where a short one will do.
# If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
# Never use the passive where you can use the active.
# Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
# Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
}}

Orwell worked as a journalist at ''[[The Observer]]'' for seven years, and its editor [[David Astor]] gave a copy of this celebrated essay to every new recruit.<ref name="Good journalism"/> In 2003, the literary editor at the newspaper [[Robert McCrum]] wrote: "Even now, it is quoted in our style book."<ref name="Good journalism">{{cite news |title=George Orwell and the eternal truths of good journalism |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/09/georgeorwell |access-date=17 July 2021 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref> The journalist [[Jonathan Heawood]] noted: "Orwell's criticism of slovenly language is still taken very seriously."<ref name="Good journalism"/>

Andrew N. Rubin argues that "Orwell claimed that we should be attentive to how the use of language has limited our capacity for critical thought just as we should be equally concerned with the ways in which dominant modes of thinking have reshaped the very language that we use."<ref>{{cite web|last=Rubin|first=Andrew N|url=http://outsidethewhale.com/2011/10/04/70/|title=The Rhetoric of Perpetual War|access-date=11 October 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120123221507/http://outsidethewhale.com/2011/10/04/70/|archive-date=23 January 2012}}</ref>

The adjective "[[Orwellian]]" connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth and manipulation of the past. In ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', Orwell described a totalitarian government that controlled thought by controlling language, making certain ideas literally unthinkable. Several words and phrases from ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' have entered popular language. "[[Newspeak]]" is a simplified and obfuscatory language designed to make independent thought impossible. "[[Doublethink]]" means holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. The "[[Thought Police]]" are those who suppress all dissenting opinion. "[[Prolefeed]]" is homogenised, manufactured superficial literature, film and music used to control and indoctrinate the populace through docility. "[[Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)|Big Brother]]" is a supreme dictator who watches everyone. Other [[neologism]]s from the novel include, "[[Two Minutes Hate]]", "[[Room 101]]", "[[memory hole]]", "[[wikt:unperson|unperson]]", and "[[thoughtcrime]]",<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> as well as providing direct inspiration for the neologism "[[groupthink]]".

Orwell may have been the first to use the term "[[cold war (general term)|cold war]]" in his essay, "You and the Atom Bomb", published in ''Tribune'' on 19 October 1945. He wrote:<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://orwell.ru/library/articles/ABomb/english/e_abomb.html
|first=George |last=Orwell
|title=You and the Atom Bomb
|publisher=[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]
|date=19 October 1945
|access-date=15 July 2010
}}</ref>
{{blockquote|
We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. [[James Burnham]]'s theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications—this is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a State which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of "cold war" with its neighbours.
}}

In 1965 the Marxist cultural studies critic [[Raymond Williams]] (the author of ''[[Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society|Keywords]]'') considered Orwell's concept of freedom and his writings in a review of books by [[Christopher Caudwell]], who unlike Orwell (the better known writer) did not survive the Spanish Civil War. Williams cautions the reader "not to rest in Orwell" for "he engages too easily with our intellectual and emotional habits... can reinforce a prejudice, delay recognition of a muddle, betray us emotionally at a point of new growth..."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Williams |first=Raymond |date=18 February 1965 |title=A young man's papers |work=Manchester Guardian}}</ref>

===Modern culture===
[[File:Society Publications.jpg|thumb|upright|Selection of publications by [[the Orwell Society]]]]
In 2011, [[The Orwell Society]] was formed to promote understanding of the life and work of Orwell.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Inaugural George Orwell Society Award bestowed by famed writer's son |url=https://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/articles/Inaugural-George-Orwell-Society-Award-bestowed-by-famed-writers-son |access-date=2025-11-15 |website=www.brunel.ac.uk |language=en-GB}}</ref> Orwell's birthplace, a [[bungalow]] in [[Motihari]], Bihar, India, was opened as a museum in May 2015.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/british-novelist-george-orwell-motihari-bihar/1/438537.html|title=George Orwell's house in Bihar turned into museum|date=17 May 2015|website=India Today|access-date=16 January 2018}}</ref>

Apart from theatre adaptations of his books, several works were written with Orwell as one of the main characters.

* In 2012 a musical play, ''One Georgie Orwell'', by Peter Cordwell and Carl Picton was performed at the [[Greenwich Theatre]], London. It explored Orwell's life, his concerns for the world that he lived in, and for the Britain that he loved.<ref>Venables, Dione (6 May 2012). ''[https://orwellsociety.com/review-one-georgie-orwell/ One Georgie Orwell @ Greenwich Theatre]'', The Orwell Society.</ref> 
* In 2014 a play by the playwright [[Joe Sutton]] titled ''Orwell in America'' was first performed by the Northern Stage theatre company in White River Junction, Vermont. It is a fictitious account of Orwell doing a book tour in the United States (something he never did in his lifetime). It moved to [[off-Broadway]] in 2016.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Jaworowski|first1=Ken|title=Review: A Dynamic Actor Redeems 'Orwell in America'|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/theater/review-orwell-in-america.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220102/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/theater/review-orwell-in-america.html |archive-date=2 January 2022 |url-access=limited |url-status=live|work=The New York Times|date=16 October 2016}}{{cbignore}}</ref> 
* In 2017 ''Mrs Orwell'' by the British playwright Tony Cox opened at the [[The Old Red Lion, Islington|Old Red Lion Theatre]] in London before transferring to the [[Southwark Playhouse]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=6 August 2017 |title=Mrs Orwell review – Cressida Bonas is persuasive as Orwell's muse and mistress |url=http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/aug/06/mrs-orwell-review-tony-cox |access-date=6 January 2023 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}</ref> The play centres on Orwell's second wife Sonia Brownell (played by [[Cressida Bonas]]), her reasons for marrying Orwell and her relationship with Lucian Freud.
* In 2019, Tasmanian theatre company Blue Cow presented the play ''101'' by Cameron Hindrum,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tale of legendary author brought to life – Eastern Shore Sun |date=15 July 2019 |url=https://www.easternshoresun.com.au/tale-of-legendary-author-brought-to-life/ |access-date=6 January 2023 |language=en}}</ref> in which Orwell is seen working on his novel ''1984'' "while keeping his severe illness at bay and balancing the demands of fatherhood, art, family and success".<ref>{{Cite web |date=9 January 2022 |title=101 – Australian Plays Transform |url=https://apt.org.au/product/101-2/ |access-date=6 January 2023 |language=en-AU}}</ref>
* Orwell is the main character in a 2017 novel ''The Last Man in Europe'' by the Australian author [[Dennis Glover]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=''The Last Man in Europe'' by Dennis Glover |author=Ben Brooker |url=https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/the-last-man-in-europe-review/ |access-date=20 August 2023 |website=Sydney Review of Books |language=en |archive-date=20 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230820045229/https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/the-last-man-in-europe-review/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
* The young Eric Blair is the main character in [[Paul Theroux]]'s 2024 novel ''[[Burma Sahib]]'', a fictional narrative of Blair's five years in the country.<ref>{{Cite web |date=13 March 2024 |title=Burma Sahib: A Personal (Re)View |url=https://orwellsociety.com/burma-sahib-a-personal-review/ |access-date=5 July 2024 |website=The Orwell Society |language=en-GB}}</ref>

=== Archive ===
In 1960 Orwell's widow Sonia deposited his papers on permanent loan to [[University College London]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=UCL Special Collections |title=George Orwell Papers: Acquisition |url=https://archives.ucl.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=ORWELL |access-date=5 December 2023 |website=UCL Archives Catalogue}}</ref> The collection contains Orwell's literary notebooks, manuscripts and typescripts of his work, personal and political diaries, correspondence and family material.<ref name=":3" /> Since the initial donation the papers{{snd}} now known as the George Orwell Archive{{snd}} have been supplemented by further donations from family, friends and business associates.<ref name=":3" /> Orwell's son Richard Blair has purchased additional material for the collection since its inception; in 2023 Blair was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from University College London for his contributions.<ref>{{Cite web |last=UCL |date=14 September 2023 |title=UCL awards 2023 Honorary Degrees and Fellowships |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/alumni/news/2023/sep/ucl-awards-2023-honorary-degrees-and-fellowships |access-date=5 December 2023 |website=UCL Alumni |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=UCL Special Collections |date=6 December 2021 |title=Important letters donated to the George Orwell Archive |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/news/2021/dec/important-letters-donated-george-orwell-archive |access-date=5 December 2023 |website=Library Services |language=en}}</ref>

University College London also holds an extensive collection of Orwell's books, including rare and early editions of his works, translations into other languages and titles from his own library.<ref>{{Cite web |last=UCL Special Collections |date=23 August 2018 |title=Orwell Book Collection |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/a-z/orwell |access-date=5 December 2023 |website=Library Services |language=en}}</ref>

===Statue===
[[File:George Orwell statue - BBC London (38562767202).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Statue of George Orwell]] outside [[Broadcasting House]], headquarters of the [[BBC]]]]
A [[statue of George Orwell]], sculpted by the British sculptor [[Martin Jennings]], was unveiled on 7 November 2017 outside [[Broadcasting House]], the headquarters of the BBC.{{refn|The statue is owned by [[The Orwell Society]] under the patronage of [[Richard Blair (patron)|Richard Blair]], Orwell's adopted son.|group=n}} The wall behind the statue is inscribed with the following phrase: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear". These are words from his proposed preface to ''Animal Farm'' and a rallying cry for the idea of free speech in an open society.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/entries/41a0eedb-c435-479d-aa63-a89ad81daf01|title=Orwell statue unveiled|date=7 November 2017|website=BBC|access-date=7 November 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/09/homage-to-george-orwell-bbc-statue-wins-planning-permission|title=Homage to George Orwell: BBC statue wins planning permission|first=Maev|last=Kennedy|date=9 August 2016|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=30 September 2017|via=www.theguardian.com}}</ref>

===Other honours===
In January 2025 the [[Royal Mint]] issued a new £2 coin to mark the 75th anniversary of Orwell's death. The design, by Henry Gray, is an allusion to ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', showing an eye with a camera lens at its centre, and including two quotations from the book.<ref>{{cite news |title=1984 author Orwell celebrated by new £2 Royal Mint coin |work=The Herald |date=13 January 2025 |location=Glasgow |page=3}}</ref>

===Biographies===
Orwell's will requested that no [[biography]] of him be written, and his [[widow]], Sonia Brownell, repelled every attempt by those who tried to persuade her to let them write about him. Various recollections and interpretations were published in the 1950s and 1960s, but Sonia saw the 1968 ''Collected Works''<ref name="autogenerated1968">{{cite book |title=The collected essays, journalism and letters of George Orwell |publisher=Secker & Warburg |year=1969 |location=London |author=Orwell, George |author2=Angus, Ian |author3=Orwell, Sonia |isbn=978-0436350153}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Rodden |first=John |date=1989 |title=Personal Behavior, Biographical History, and Literary Reputation: The Case of George Orwell |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23539417 |journal=Biography |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=189–207 |jstor=23539417 |issn=0162-4962}}</ref> as the record of his life. She did appoint Malcolm Muggeridge as official biographer, but later biographers have seen this as deliberate spoiling as Muggeridge eventually gave up the work.<ref name=autogenerated7>D.J. Taylor ''Orwell: The Life''. Henry Holt and Company. 2003. {{ISBN|0805074732}}</ref> In 1972, two American authors, Peter Stansky and William Abrahams, produced ''The Unknown Orwell'', an unauthorised account of his early years that lacked any support or contribution from Sonia Brownell.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.darcymoore.net/2020/01/25/homage-stansky-abrahams-orwells-first-biographers/ |title=Homage to Stansky and Abrahams: Orwell's first biographers |date=24 January 2020 |access-date=23 July 2020 }}</ref>

Sonia Brownell then commissioned [[Bernard Crick]] to complete a biography and asked Orwell's friends to co-operate.<ref name="OrwellAndBiographers"/> Crick collated a considerable amount of material in his work, which was published in 1980,<ref name="OrwellAndBiographers"/> but his questioning of the factual accuracy of Orwell's first-person writings led to conflict with Brownell, and she tried to suppress the book. Crick concentrated on the facts of Orwell's life rather than his character, and presented primarily a political perspective.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1982/spring/meyers-wintry-conscience/ |title=VQR " Wintry Conscience |access-date=23 December 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208143658/http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1982/spring/meyers-wintry-conscience/ |archive-date=8 December 2008}}</ref>

After Sonia Brownell's death, other works on Orwell were published in the 1980s, particularly in 1984. These included collections of reminiscences by Audrey Coppard and Crick<ref name="autogenerated1984"/><ref name=":4" /> and Stephen Wadhams.<ref name=Wadhams/><ref>{{Cite web |date=7 January 2018 |title=Remembering Orwell Again |url=https://orwellsociety.com/remembering-orwell-again/ |access-date=27 March 2024 |website=The Orwell Society |language=en-GB}}</ref> In 1991, [[Michael Shelden]] published a biography.<ref name=Shelden/><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Haley |first=P. Edward |date=1993 |title=Review of Orwell: The Authorized Biography |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20719210 |journal=Utopian Studies |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=193–195 |jstor=20719210 |issn=1045-991X}}</ref> More concerned with the literary nature of Orwell's work, he sought explanations for Orwell's character and treated his first-person writings as [[autobiographical]]. Shelden introduced new information that sought to build on Crick's work.<ref name="OrwellAndBiographers">Gordon Bowker – ''Orwell and the biographers'' in John Rodden ''The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell'' Cambridge University Press 2007</ref>

[[Peter Davison (professor)|Peter Davison]]'s publication of the ''Complete Works of George Orwell'', completed in 2000,<ref>Davison, Peter. ''The Complete Works of George Orwell''. Random House, {{ISBN|0151351015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Meyers |first=Jeffrey |date=2001 |title=Review of The Complete Works of George Orwell. With additional notes on George Orwell: A Bibliography |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24304724 |journal=The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America |volume=95 |issue=1 |pages=121–124 |doi=10.1086/pbsa.95.1.24304724 |jstor=24304724 |issn=0006-128X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> made most of the Orwell Archive accessible to the public. Jeffrey Meyers, a prolific American biographer, was first to take advantage of this and published a book in 2001 that investigated the darker side of Orwell and questioned his saintly image.<ref name="OrwellAndBiographers"/> ''[[Why Orwell Matters]]'' (released in the UK as ''Orwell's Victory'') was published by [[Christopher Hitchens]] in 2002.<ref>Also see: {{cite web |last=Roberts |first=Russ |title=Hitchens on Orwell |url=http://www.econtalk.org/archives/_featuring/christopher_hit/ |work=[[EconTalk]] |publisher=[[Library of Economics and Liberty]] |author-link=Russ Roberts |date=17 August 2009 |access-date=14 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130402194513/http://www.econtalk.org/archives/_featuring/christopher_hit/ |archive-date=2 April 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 2003, the centenary of Orwell's birth resulted in biographies by [[Gordon Philip Bowker|Gordon Bowker]]<ref>{{cite web|last=Bowker|first=Gordon|url=https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/articles/gordon-bowker-the-biography-orwell-never-wrote/|title=The Biography Orwell Never Wrote|publisher=The Orwell Foundation|date=20 October 2010}}</ref> and [[D. J. Taylor (writer)|D.J. Taylor]].<ref name=":5">{{Cite news |last=Bakewell |first=Sarah |date=26 August 2023 |title=One Biography Questions Orwell's Image, and Another Brings His First Wife Into Focus |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/26/books/review/orwell-dj-taylor-wifedom-anna-funder.html |access-date=27 March 2024 |work=The New York Times |language=en}}</ref> Taylor notes the stage management which surrounds much of Orwell's behaviour<ref name=Taylor/> and Bowker highlights the essential sense of decency which he considers to have been Orwell's main motivation.<ref>Review: ''Orwell by DJ Taylor and George Orwell by Gordon Bowker'' Observer on Sunday 1 June 2003</ref> An updated edition of Taylor's biography was released in 2023 as ''Orwell: The New Life'', published by Constable.<ref>{{Cite web |url= https://www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/events/2023/june/06/orwell-new-life |title=Orwell: The New Life - lecture and Q&A with D.J.Taylor|last=Taylor|first=D.J.|date=6 June 2023 |publisher=Balliol College, Oxford University}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|title=D J Taylor to write second Orwell biography for Constable |url=https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/constable-signs-fresh-orwell-biography-award-winner-taylor-1109236 |date=4 November 2019|publisher=The Bookseller}}</ref>

In 2018, Ronald Binns published the first detailed study of Orwell's years in Suffolk, ''Orwell in Southwold''. In 2020, Richard Bradford wrote a new biography, ''Orwell: A Man of Our Time'',<ref>{{Cite web |date=27 January 2020 |title=Orwell: A Man of Our Time by Richard Bradford review – undone by its own premise |url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/27/orwell-a-man-of-our-time-richard-bradford-review |access-date=6 January 2023 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}</ref> while in 2021 [[Rebecca Solnit]] reflected on Orwell's interest in gardening in her book ''Orwell's Roses''.<ref>{{Cite web |date=19 October 2021 |title=Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit review – deadheading with George Orwell |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/19/orwells-roses-by-rebecca-solnit-review-george-orwell-in-the-garden |access-date=6 January 2023 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}</ref>

Two books about Orwell's relationship with his first wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy, and her role in his life and career, have been published: ''Eileen: The Making of George Orwell'' by Sylvia Topp (2020)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cooke |first=Rachel |date=10 March 2020 |title=Eileen: The Making of George Orwell by Sylvia Topp – review |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/10/eileen-the-making-of-george-orwell-sylvia-topp-review |access-date=20 August 2023 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> and ''Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life'' by [[Anna Funder]] (2023).<ref>{{Cite news |last=Funder |first=Anna |date=30 July 2023 |title=Looking for Eileen: how George Orwell wrote his wife out of his story |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/30/my-hunt-for-eileen-george-orwell-erased-wife-anna-funder |access-date=20 August 2023 |issn=0029-7712}}</ref><ref name=":5" /> In her book Funder claims that Orwell was misogynistic and sadistic. This sparked a strong controversy among Orwell's biographers, particularly with Topp. Celia Kirwan's family also intervened in the discussion, believing that the attribution to their relative of a relationship with Orwell, as stated by Funder, is false. The publishing house of ''Wifedom'' was forced to remove that reference from the book.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Sadistic and misogynistic? Row erupts over sex claims in book about George Orwell's marriage |date=11 November 2023 |last=Brooks |first=Richard |work=The Observer |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/11/row-sex-claims-book-george-orwell-marriage |access-date=14 November 2023}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
{{Main|George Orwell bibliography}}

===Novels===
* 1934&nbsp;– ''[[Burmese Days]]''
* 1935&nbsp;– ''[[A Clergyman's Daughter]]''
* 1936&nbsp;– ''[[Keep the Aspidistra Flying]]''
* 1939&nbsp;– ''[[Coming Up for Air]]''
* 1945&nbsp;– ''[[Animal Farm]]''
* 1949&nbsp;– ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''

===Nonfiction===
* 1933&nbsp;– ''[[Down and Out in Paris and London]]''
* 1937&nbsp;– ''[[The Road to Wigan Pier]]''
* 1938&nbsp;– ''[[Homage to Catalonia]]''

==Notes==
{{Reflist |30em|group=n}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* Anderson, Paul (ed.). ''Orwell in Tribune: 'As I Please' and Other Writings''. Methuen/Politico's 2006. {{ISBN|1842751557}}
* [[Joxe Azurmendi|Azurmendi, Joxe]] (1984). "George Orwell. 1984: Reality exists in the human mind". ''[[Jakin (magazine)|Jakin]]'', 32: 87–103.
* [[Philip Bounds|Bounds, Philip]]. ''Orwell and Marxism: The Political and Cultural Thinking of George Orwell''. I.B. Tauris. 2009. {{ISBN|1845118073}}
* [[Gordon Bowker (writer)|Bowker]], Gordon. ''George Orwell''. Little Brown. 2003. {{ISBN|0316861154}}
* Buddicom, Jacintha. ''Eric & Us''. Finlay Publisher. 2006. {{ISBN|0955370809}}
* Caute, David. ''Dr. Orwell and Mr. Blair'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson. {{ISBN|0297814389}}
* {{Cite book|last1=Colls |first1=Robert |authorlink=Robert Colls |year=2013 |title=George Orwell: English Rebel |place=London |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |page=217 |isbn=978-0199680801 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=zXncAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA217 }}
* [[Bernard Crick|Crick, Bernard]]. ''George Orwell: A Life''. Penguin. 1982. {{ISBN|0140058567}}
* [[Peter Davison (professor)|Davison, Peter]]; Angus, Ian; Davison, Sheila (eds.). 2000 ''A Kind of Compulsion''. London: Random House {{ISBN|978-0436205422}}
* Flynn, Nigel. ''George Orwell''. The Rourke Corporation, Inc. 1990. {{ISBN|086593018X}}
* Haycock, David Boyd. ''I Am Spain: The Spanish Civil War and the Men and Women who went to Fight Fascism''. Old Street Publishing. 2013. {{ISBN|978-1908699107}}
* [[Christopher Hitchens|Hitchens, Christopher]]. ''Why Orwell Matters''. Basic Books. 2003. {{ISBN|0465030491}}
* Hollis, Christopher. ''A Study of George Orwell: The Man and His Works''. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co. 1956.
* Larkin, Emma. ''Secret Histories: Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop''. Penguin. 2005. {{ISBN|1594200521}}
* Lee, Robert A. ''Orwell's Fiction''. University of Notre Dame Press, 1969. {{LCCN|74-75151}}
* Leif, Ruth Ann. ''Homage to Oceania. The Prophetic Vision of George Orwell''. Ohio State U.P. [1969]
* Meyers, Jeffery. ''Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation''. W.W. Norton. 2000. {{ISBN|0393322637}}
* [[John Newsinger|Newsinger, John]]. ''Orwell's Politics''. Macmillan. 1999. {{ISBN|0333682874}}
* {{Citation |title = The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters |first = George |last = Orwell |volume = 1&nbsp;– An Age Like This 1945–1950 |publisher = Penguin}}.
* {{cite book|last=Rodden|first=John|title=George Orwell: The Politics of Literary Reputation|edition=2002 revised|year=1989|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn= 978-0765808967}}
* Rodden, John (ed.). ''The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell''. Cambridge. 2007. {{ISBN|978-0521675079}}
* [[Michael Shelden|Shelden, Michael]]. ''Orwell: The Authorized Biography''. HarperCollins. 1991. {{ISBN|0060167092}}
* Smith, D. & Mosher, M. ''Orwell for Beginners''. 1984. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative.
* [[D. J. Taylor (writer)|Taylor, D.J.]] ''Orwell: The Life''. Henry Holt and Company. 2003. {{ISBN|0805074732}}
* West, W.J. ''The Larger Evils''. Edinburgh: Canongate Press. 1992. {{ISBN|0862413826}} (Nineteen Eighty-Four&nbsp;– The truth behind the satire.)
* West, W.J. (ed.). ''George Orwell: The Lost Writings''. New York: Arbor House. 1984. {{ISBN|0877957452}}
* [[Raymond Williams|Williams, Raymond]]. ''Orwell'', Fontana/Collins, 1971
* Wood, James. "A Fine Rage." ''The New Yorker''. 2009. 85(9):54.
* [[George Woodcock|Woodcock, George]]. ''The Crystal Spirit''. Little Brown. 1966. {{ISBN|1551642689}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last= Karp|first=Masha|author-link= Masha Karp |title= George Orwell and Russia |edition=1st |year=2023 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |location=United Kingdom |isbn=978-1788317139 |url=https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/george-orwell-and-russia-9781788317139/ | pages = 312 }}
* Morgan, W. John, ''Pacifism or Bourgeois Pacifism? Huxley, Orwell, and Caudwell''. Chapter&nbsp;5 in Morgan, W. John and Guilherme, Alexandre (Eds.), ''Peace and War-Historical, Philosophical, and Anthropological Perspectives'', Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp.&nbsp;71–96. {{ISBN|978-3030486709}}.
* Orwell, George. ''Diaries'', edited by [[Peter Davison (professor)|Peter Davison]] ([[W. W. Norton & Company]]; 2012) 597 pages; annotated edition of 11 diaries kept by Orwell, from August 1931 to September 1949.
* Orwell, George. ''On Jews and Antisemitism'', introduced, edited and annotated by Paul Seeliger (Berlin: Comino; 2022) 304 pages, {{ISBN|978-3945831328}}.
* {{cite encyclopedia |last1=Steele |first1= David Ramsay|author-link1= David Ramsay Steele|editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC|year=2008 |publisher= [[SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n224 |isbn= 978-1412965804 |oclc=750831024| lccn = 2008009151 |pages=366–368 |chapter= Orwell, George (1903–1950)}}
* Ostrom, Hans and Halton, William. ''Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" in the Age of Pseudocracy'' (New York: Routledge, 2018) {{ISBN|978-1138499904}}.
* Powell, Anthony. 1977. ''Infants of the Spring'', pp.&nbsp;91–104. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
* [[Dione Venables|Venables, Dione]], ''George Orwell – The Complete Poetry'', introduction by [[Peter Davison (literary scholar)|Peter Davidson]] (Finlay Publisher; 2015) {{isbn|978-0955370823}}.
* Wilson, S.M. and Huxtable, J. ''"Such, Such Were the Joys: graphic novel"'' (London: Pluto Press, 2021) {{ISBN|978-0745345925}}.

==External links==
{{Sister project links|wikt=Appendix:George Orwell|d=Q3335|commons=Category:George Orwell|b=no|n=no|q=George Orwell|s=Author:George Orwell|v=no|species=no}}
* [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31915 Blair, Eric Arthur (George Orwell) (1903–1950) at the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'']
* [https://www.bl.uk/people/george-orwell George Orwell] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210116084546/https://www.bl.uk/people/george-orwell |date=16 January 2021 }} at the [[British Library]]
* {{IEP|url-id=george-orwell}}
* {{OL author}}
* {{Internet Archive author|sname=George Orwell}}
* [https://www.newstatesman.com/archive/2025/06/an-orwell-special Orwell obituary (1950)] by [[V. S. Pritchett]], accessed 6/27/2025 
* {{FadedPage|id=Blair, Eric Arthur|name=George Orwell|author=yes}}
* {{UK National Archives ID}}
* [https://ucl.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/collectionDiscovery?vid=44UCL_INST:UCL_VU2&collectionId=81354457070004761 George Orwell archive] at [[University College London]]
* [https://archives.ucl.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=ORWELL Orwell Papers] at University College London
* [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/a-z/orwell Orwell Collection] (rare and early editions of Orwell's works) at University College London

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