George Orwell
George Orwell (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English writer. His real name was Eric Arthur Blair.[1][2] He used the name George Orwell for his novels.
He was born in India during the British Empire's rule of India. He is best known for two novels that he wrote in the late 1940s, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. In those works, he said that totalitarianism, especially Stalinism, was very bad. Orwell was pro-life.[3] He was majorly an anti-communist and right-leaning democratic socialist.[4]
Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War with the antifascist troops. These troops were against the dictatorship of fascist governments.
Orwell died of tuberculosis in London.
Early life
Eric Arthur Blair was born on 25 June 1903, in India.[5] His great-grandfather Charles Blair was a rich gentleman who had married Lady Mary Fane, and he owned slaves and plantations in Jamaica.[6][7] His grandfather, Thomas Richard Arthur Blair, was a clergyman.[8] His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked in the Indian Civil Service. His mother, Ida Mabel Blair, grew up in Burma.[6] He had a younger sister Avril and an older sister Marjorie. When Eric was one year old, Ida took him to England.[9]
Eric grew up with his mother and sisters. Except for a short visit, he did not see his father again until 1912. The family moved to Shiplake before World War I. There, Eric became friends with the Buddicom family, especially Gertrude Butticom. They read poetry and hoped to become famous writers. At this time, he also liked fishing and watching birds with Jacintha's brother and sister.[10]
When he was five, Eric was sent to a Catholic convent school where Marjorie went.[11] His mother wanted him to go to public school, but his family was not rich enough to pay for it. Ida's brother, Charles Limouzin, was asked to help find the best school to help Eric prepare for better things.[12] He suggested St Cyprian's School in Eastbourne, Sussex. Limouzin, who was a good golfer, came to know the school and its headmaster at the Royal Eastbourne Golf Club. The headmaster helped Blair win the scholarship to pay for his education. He also let Blair's parents pay only half the usual amount of money. However, Blair hated the school.[13]
George Orwell Media
Blair family home at Shiplake, Oxfordshire
WWI poem by 11-year-old Blair, "Awake! Young Men of England", published in 1914 in the Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard
Blair pictured in a passport photo 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.
British Club in Katha, Myanmar
The blue house on the right was Blair's 1927 lodgings in Portobello Road, London.
Rue du Pot de Fer on the Left Bank in the 5th arrondissement, where Blair lived in Paris
Southwold Pier in Southwold. Orwell wrote A Clergyman's Daughter (1935) in the town, basing the fictional town of Knype Hill partly on Southwold.
The pen name George Orwell was inspired by the River Orwell in the English county of Suffolk.
English Heritage blue plaque in Kentish Town, London where Orwell lived from August 1935 until January 1936
Bibliography
Novels
- Burmese Days (1934)
- A Clergyman's Daughter (1935)
- Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936)
- Coming Up for Air (1939)
- Animal Farm (1945)
- Nineteen Eighty-Four (8 June 1949'[14][15])
Essays
- Notes on Nationalism (1945)[16]
- A Nice Cup of Tea (1946)
Books based on his life
- Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
- The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)
- Homage to Catalonia (1938)
Poems
- "Romance"
- "A Little Poem"
- "Awake! Young Men of England"
- "Kitchener"
- "Our Minds are Married, But we are Too Young"
- "The Pagan"
- "The Lesser Evil"
- "Poem From Burma"
References
- ↑ "BBC - History - Historic Figures: George Orwell (1903 - 1950)". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 3 September 2010.
- ↑ "George Orwell Biography - Charles' George Orwell Links". netcharles.com. Archived from the original on 7 July 2010. Retrieved 3 September 2010.
- ↑ "Why George Orwell Was Pro-Life". Crisis Magazine. 2004-01-01. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
- ↑ Orwell, George (2014-10-30). Why I Write. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-0-14-198060-7.
- ↑ Crick, Bernard (2004). "Eric Arthur Blair [pseud. George Orwell] (1903–1950)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Stansky, Peter; Abrahams, William (1994). "From Bengal to St Cyprian's". The unknown Orwell: Orwell, the transformation. Styanford, CA: Stanford University Press. pp. 5–12. ISBN 978-0-80-472342-8.
- ↑ Olusoga, David (2015-07-11). "The history of British slave ownership has been buried: now its scale can be revealed". the Guardian. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
The records show that for the 218 men and women he regarded as his property, Charles Blair, the great-grandfather of George Orwell, was paid the more modest sum of £4,442 – the modern equivalent of about £3m. There are other famous names hidden within the records. Ancestors of the novelist Graham Greene, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott all received compensation for slaves. As did a distant ancestor of David Cameron.
- ↑ Taylor, D.J. Orwell: The Life. Henry Holt and Company. 2003. ISBN 0-8050-7473-2
- ↑ Bernard Crick. George Orwell: A Life. Secker & Warburg 1980. Stansky and Abrahams had suggested that Mrs Blair moved to England in 1907 because of information given by Avril Blair remembering a time before she was born.
- ↑ Buddicom, Jacintha. Eric & Us. Finlay Publisher. 2006. ISBN 0-9553708-0-9
- ↑ Gordon Bowker, Orwell, p.21
- ↑ Gordon Bowker. George Orwell biography. p. 28
- ↑ Alaric Jacob. Sharing Orwell's Joys, but not his Fears in Christopher Norris (ed.) Inside the Myth. Lawrence and Wishart. 1984.
- ↑ Bowker, p. 383, 399.
- ↑ "Charles' George Orwell Links". Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2011-02-24.
- ↑ "What George Orwell Wrote About the Dangers of Nationalism". Literary Hub. 16 November 2017.