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George Orwell (Novelist) by Britain
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Who was George Orwell?
George Orwell was a novelist and journalist whose
work made social and political comment. He was christened Eric Arthur
Blair.
Date and Place of Birth:
25th June 1903, Montihari, Bengal, India.
Family background:
Orwell was the son of Richard Walmesley Blair
a sub-deputy agent Opium Agent in the Indian Civil Service and Ida
Mabel Blair (née Limouzin).
Education:
Sunnylands Church of England School, Eastbourne,
Sussex. St. Cyprian’s Preparatory School, Eastbourne, Sussex. Eton
College.
Chronology/Biography of George Orwell:
1904: Brought to
England by his mother where the family live in Henley-on-Thames,
Oxfordshire.
1907: Orwell's father
has three month's leave in England to see his family.
1908: Birth of his
younger sister Avril Nora.
1911: Becomes a
border at St Cyprian's Preparatory School in Eastbourne, Sussex.
1912: His father
retires from the Indian Civil Service and returns to ENgland. The
family move to Shiplake near Henley on Thames.
1914: George Orwell
has his first work published. A poem called "Awake Young Men
of England in the Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard newspaper.
1915: Family move
back to Henley on Thames.
1917: Spends the
spring at Wellington College. Moves to at Eton College on a King’s
Scholarship.
1921: George Orwell
leaves Eton. His family moves to Southwold in Suffolk.
1922: Orwell prepares
for his India Office Examinations by cramming at Southwold between
January and June. Moves to Burma to become Assistant Superintendent
of Police with the Indian Imperial Police.
1928: Resigns his
job as he is opposed to British Imperialism. Moves to Paris as a
writer. He earns money by washing dishes. Contracts pneumonia in
February.
1930: Lives in London
and the South East living virtually as a tramp where he gets the
idea for his novel "Down and Out in Paris and London".
1932: Teaches at
a small private school in Hayes, Middlesex called the Hawthorns.
1933: Takes on his
pen name George Orwell for the first time to publish “Down
and Out in Paris and London” with Victor Gollancz. Teaches
at Frays College in Middlesex. Is taken to hospital with another
bout of pneumonia.
1934: Orwell stops
his work as a teacher and lives in Southwold. The novel "Burmese
Days" is published in AMerica. He moves to Hampstead in London
in the late autumn.
1935: Works as a
shop assistant in a bookshop in Hampstead called "Booklovers
Corner". "Burmese Days" is published in Britain for
the first time. Meets Eileen O'Shaughnessy for the first time.
1936: VIctor Gollancz
suggests he tours Lancashire and Yorkshire to study working class
life. Later he sets up home in Wallington in Hertfordshire. After
his marriage he goes to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War.
1937: He serves
as a Corporal with the Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista detachment
of the Aragon front. He is involved in street fighting between anarchists
and government troops in Barcelona. He is discharged on medical
grounds after being wounded in the throat. Escapes arrest after
purges on the Republican forces. The road to Wigan Pier" is
published by the Left Book Club and sells 40,000 copies.
1938: His novel
"Homage to Catalonia" describes life in the civil war.
Returns to Kent where he is treated for tuberculosis in a sanatorium.
Travels to Morocco to try and improve his health.
1939: George Orwell
returns to England in March. His father dies.
1940: Moves to London
where he supports himself as a journalist writing for "The
Time and Tide" and the "Tribune". Joins the Local
Defence Volunteers which is later renamed the Home Guard.
1941: Joins the
BBC in the Empire Department broadcasting to India and South east
Asia. Death of his mother.
1943: Becomes the
Literary Editor of the "Tribune", socialist newspaper.
Writes a weekly column called “As I Please.”
1944: Orwell and
his wife adopt a one month old baby which they call Richard Horatio
Blair.
1945: Becomes a
war correspondent and travels to Paris and Cologne for the "Observer"
newspaper. Eileen undergoes an operation and dies on the table.
As a journalist he covers the first General Election campaign after
the Second World War has ended. One of his most famous novels "Animal
Farm," a satire on the Russian Revolution is published in August.
1946: George Orwell
moves to to the Isle of Jura in the Inner Hebrides.
1947: On Christmas
Eve he is taken to Hairmyres Hospital, near Glasgow, suffering from
tuberculosis of the left lung.
1948: He is well
enough to return to Jura in July where he revises "Nineteen
Eighty Four."
1949: "Nineteen
Eighty Four" is published and sells over 400,000 copies in
its first year. Still suffering from ill health he moves to the
Cotswolds Sanatorium in Cranham in Gloucestershire. He is moved
to University College London in September and marries for the second
time in October. His bride, Sonia Bronwell, an editorial assistant
with Horizon magazine, is at his bedside.
Written Works:
- 1914:
"Awake Young Men of England (poem under his real name)
- 1933: "Down
and Out in Paris and London"
- 1934:
“Burmese Days”
- 1935:
“A Clergyman's Daughter”
- 1936:
“Keep the Aspidistra Flying”
- 1937: “The Road
to Wigan Pier”
- 1938:
“Homage to Catalonia”
- 1939: “Coming
Up for Air”
- 1940: “Inside
the Whale”
- 1941:
“The Lion and the Unicorn”. “Socialism and the English Genius”
- 1945: "Animal
Farm"
- 1946: “Critical
Essays.” “Politics and the English Language”
- 1949: “Nineteen
Eighty-Four”
- 1950:
“Shooting an Elephant”
- (1968):
Collected Essays, Journals and Letters
Marriage:
1. 1936 to Eileen Maud O’Shaughnessey. (Died
1949).
2. 1950 to Sonya Bronwell at his bedside at University College Hospital,
London.
Date and Place of Death:
21st January 1950, London, England of a hemorrhaged
lung.
Age at Death:
47.
Site of Grave:
All Saint's Churchyard, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire,
England.
Places of Interest:
LONDON
Hampstead
SCOTLAND
The Isle of Jura
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