George Orwell

Literature / Writer's Datebook: June 25

Brief biography and works of George Orwell, English novelist and essayist, author of classic novels '1984' and 'Animal Farm.'  

George Orwell, English novelist and essayist, is famous for his two novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Recognized as one of the greatest English essayists, he is known for his Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, published in four volumes.    

Animal Farm contains the memorable phrase "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" – a classic quote of political satire. 

 

Early Life of Orwell: Education and Odd Jobs

George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair. He was born in India (June 25, 1903 – January 21, 1950), to English parents and was taken to England as a child. He was brought up in an upper-middle class and educated at Eton College.

Orwell served in the Imperial Police in Burma for five years from 1922. Upon his return to Europe, he took a series of poorly paid jobs, while trying to get his writing published. He became a socialist during those years. He described this period of his life in his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London, published when he was 30. His novel The Round to Wigan Pier highlights an angry study of the grinding poverty especially in the North of England's working classes at that time. 

 

Later Life: The Spanish Civil War

Orwell fought on the left-wing Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and was wounded. Despite his left-wing views, his experiences made him dislike the communists, who backed the Republicans, and he attacked them in Homage to Catalonia, an account of experiences fighting for the Republican Government. He was unfit for military service in World War II and worked for the BBC.

Toward the end of the war he wrote Animal Farm, a grim allegory of the history of the Soviet Union in which farm animals create a revolutionary state that goes terribly wrong. It depicts the betrayal of a revolution. The farm animals overthrow their human rulers, but eventually the pigs take over the former role of the humans. 

 

Final Years

Orwell died from tuberculosis at the age of 46, soon after the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, on of his most famous book that describes a nightmare life under the dictatorship of a party leader, known as "Big Brother" who constantly reminds his people: "Big Brother is watching you," an even more grim picture of a future totalitarian world.  

 

Books by George Orwell

Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933

Burmese Days, 1934

A Clergyman's Daughter, 935

Keep the Aspidistra Flying, 1936

The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937

Homage to Catalonia, 1938

Coming up for Air, 1939

Animal Farm, 1945

Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949

 

Image Credit:

George Orwell. NNDB.com / Public Domain

 

Resources:

Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers (2002)

Dictionary of Literature, Brockhampton Press (1995)

Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse (1994)   

 

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