George orwell

George Orwell

1903-1950

Background Info

Books By George Orwell1. Down and

Out in Paris and London

2. The Road to Wigan Pier

3. Homage to Catalonia

4. Animal Farm

5. 1984

•Real Name: Eric Arthur Blair• Wrote his

first published work while attending St. Cyprian’s School in Sussex, a poem titled “Awake! Young Men of England”.• Blair

earned a scholarship to Eton College where he learned French from Aldous Huxley

After he resigned he moved to Paris to try writing short stories but when no one would publish his stories he destroyed them.Following this he caught pneumonia and moved back to England where he took his pseudonym George Orwell so as not to embarrass his family.

•Orwell was once a student of J.R.R. Tolkien.•He and his wife adopted a son shortly after being wed.•They both wanted to fight in the Spanish civil war where George Orwell was shot in the throat while on the front. He joined the anti-Stalinist Spanish Trotskyist ‘Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista’ or POUM, the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification. When the communists partly gained control and tried to purge the POUM, many of Blair's friends were arrested, shot, or disappeared. He and Eileen barely escaped with their lives in 1937.

The Great

Works of

George Orwell

1984

Animal Farm

'Nineteen Eighty-Four' was published four years later. Set in an imaginary totalitarian future, the book made a deep impression, with its title and many phrases - such as 'Big Brother is watching you', 'newspeak' and 'doublethink' - entering popular use.

In 1945, Orwell's 'Animal Farm' was published. A political fable set in a farmyard but based on Stalin's betrayal of the Russian Revolution, it made Orwell's name and ensured

he was financially comfortable for the first time in his

life.

Social Relevance

George Orwell’s life and works have been the source of inspiration for

many other authors’ works. Keep The Aspidistra Flying, Animal Farm, and Nineteen Eighty-Four have inspired

numerous television and film adaptations. He has also contributed

numerous concepts, words, and phrases to present day language.

George Orwell is a master of wit and satire, critically observing the politics

of his time and prophetically envisioning the future. He devoted much of his life to various causes critical of capitalism, imperialism,

fascism, and Stalinism, but in the end what he “most wanted to do is to make political writing into an art.”

Eric Arthur Blair died suddenly in London on 21 January 1950 at the age of forty-six, succumbing to the tuberculosis that had plagued him for the last three years of his life.

BibliographyBBC. (2009). Historic Figures. Retrieved September 10, 2009, from BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/orwell_george.shtmlMerriman, C. (2006). Retrieved September 10, 2009, from The Literature Network: http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/