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 pen 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. He was a democratic socialist.[3]
Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War with the Marxist Workers’s Unification Party. They fought for Communism and 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.[4] His great-grandfather Charles Blair was a rich gentleman who had married Lady Mary Fane, and he owned slaves and plantations in Jamaica.[5][6] His grandfather, Thomas Richard Arthur Blair, was a clergyman.[7] His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked in the Indian Civil Service. His mother, Ida Mabel Blair, grew up in Burma.[5] He had a younger sister Avril and an older sister Marjorie. When Eric was one year old, Ida took him to England.[8]
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 his brother and sister.[9]
When he was five, Eric was sent to a Catholic convent school where Marjorie went.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12]
World War One
When he was eleven, Blair wrote a poem about why the British should fight Germany in World War I. After he graduated from school, he went to Burma with the British army.
Travels
After seeing a hanging, Blair quit the army, moved to France and sold everything he had except (some of) his clothes. He then worked as a porter, then as a teacher and then washing dishes for hotels and restaurants. He also met Soviet Communists and didn’t like them. He then moved back to London, travelled with the poor and wrote two stories.
Name
After writing those stories, he wrote a book called Down and Out in Paris and London and used the name George Orwell.
Before the Civil War
Orwell then became a teacher, wrote the novel Burmese Days, and wrote the novel A Clergyman’s daughter. He also quit being a teacher and married Eileen O’Shaughnessy. Orwell then wrote the novel Keep the Apsidistra Flying which criticized capitalism.
Spanish Civil War
Orwell went to Spain to fight against Franco. Then Stalin said that the Trotskyists were trying to help Franco so the Spanish Secret police started trying to capture or kill Orwell and the others. Orwell ran away to escape and hated Stalin because of what happened.
Wigan Pier
Orwell then wrote The Road to Wigan Pier and said that people should support Socialism.
Homage to Catalonia
Orwell then wrote a book called Homage to Catalonia about the Spanish Civil War. In it, he said Stalin was really bad. His publisher Victor Gollancz said that he wouldn’t publish it, so Orwell said Gollancz was “part of the Communism racket” and found another publisher.
World War Two
Orwell tried to join the British army again when World War II started and ended up working for the BBC. He quit after they asked him to say Stalin wasn’t that bad and he wrote Animal Farm. Four different publishers said they wouldn’t publish it. Then the war ended and Orwell published it. He also wrote an essay on the Cold War.
1984
Orwell then wrote 1984 and said it was about Communism in English speaking countries.
Death
Orwell died of tuberculosis in 1950
George Orwell Media
The birthplace of one of the most celebrated writers of the twentieth century and the author of several famous books, George Orwell.
Home of the Blair family at Shiplake near Henley
First World War poem by 11-year-old Blair, "Awake! Young Men of England", published in 1914 in the Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard
Passport photograph of Blair 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.
English Heritage blue plaque in Kentish Town, London, where Orwell lived from August 1935 until January 1936
A former warehouse at Wigan Pier is named after Orwell.
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'[13][14])
Essays
- Notes on Nationalism (1945)[15]
- 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. Retrieved 3 September 2010.
- ↑ Orwell, George. Why I Write (in en) (2014-10-30)Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-0-14-198060-7.
- ↑ Crick, Bernard. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Stansky, Peter. The unknown Orwell: Orwell, the transformation (1994). Styanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p. 5–12. ISBN 978-0-80-472342-8.
- ↑ Olusoga, David. The history of British slave ownership has been buried: now its scale can be revealed (in en). the Guardian (2015-07-11). Retrieved 2020-11-07.
- ↑ 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. Retrieved 2011-02-24.
- ↑ What George Orwell Wrote About the Dangers of Nationalism (in en). Literary Hub (16 November 2017).