George Orwell

George Orwell
Press card portrait, 1943
Born	Eric Arthur Blair (1903-06-25)25 June 1903 Motihari, Bengal, British India
Died	21 January 1950(1950-01-21) (aged 46) London, England
Resting place	All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, England
Pen name	George Orwell
Occupation	Novelist essayist journalist literary critic
Language	English
Education	Eton College
Subjects	Anti-fascism anti-Stalinism anarchism democratic socialism
Years active	1928–1950
Notable works	Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) Homage to Catalonia (1936) Animal Farm (1945) Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
Spouse	Eileen O'Shaughnessy ​ ​ (m. 1936; died 1945)​ Sonia Brownell ​ (m. 1949)​
Children	Richard Blair

Biography

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism.

Born in India, Blair was raised and educated in England from when he was one year old. After school he became an Imperial policeman in Burma, before returning to Suffolk, England, where he began his writing career as George Orwell—a name inspired by a favourite location, the River Orwell.

Orwell produced literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.

Orwell spent a brief period as a film reviewer, particularly enjoying the works of Charlie Chaplin. Writers that Orwell owned the works of include Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. His library contained a mix from significant literary classics such as James Joyce's Ulysses to detective story serials like Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown.

Film (likes)

Orwell and Films (2019)

• Jack Ahoy - Walter Forde
• The Gold Rush - Charlie Chaplin
• The Great Dictator - Charlie Chaplin

Film (dislikes)

Orwell and Films (2019)

• One Night in Lisbon - Edward H. Griffith
• The Heart of Britain - Humphrey Jennings
• High Sierra - Raoul Walsh
• Waterloo Bridge - Mervyn LeRoy

Literature (likes)

Orwell's Library (2005)

• Pigling Bland - Beatrix Potter
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
• Through the Looking-Glass - Lewis Carroll
• The Coral Island - R. M. Ballantyne
• David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
• Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift
• A Modern Utopia - H. G. Wells
• The Gem (comic)
• The Magnet (comic)
• Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
• Helen's Babies - John Habberton
• Mark Twain (general)
• M. R. James (general)
• Father Brown (series) - G. K. Chesterton
• Max Carrados (series) - Ernest Bramah
• Dr. Thorndyke (series) - R. Austin Freeman
• A. J. Raffles (series) - E. W. Hornung
• Sherlock Holmes (series) - Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes (collection) - Arthur Conan Doyle
• Autobiography of a Super Tramp - W. H. Davies
• People of the Abyss - Jack London
• Roughing It - Mark Twain
• Somerset Maugham (general)
• All Men Are Enemies - Richard Aldington
• Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
• Assignment in Utopia - Eugene Lyons
• The Note-Books of Samuel Butler - Samuel Butler
• Joseph Conrad (general)
• Charles Dickens (general)
• Origin of Species - Charles Darwin
• T. S. Eliot (general)
• Henry Fielding (general)
• Les contes de Jacques Tournebroche - Anatole France
• The Dynasts - Thomas Hardy
• The Satyricon - Gaius Petronius Arbiter
• William Makepeace Thackeray (general)
• Anthony Trollope (general)
• War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
• Innocents Abroad - Mark Twain
• George Gissing (general)
• England Made Me - Graham Greene
• The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene
• Put Out More Flags - Evelyn Waugh
• Miscellanies in Prose and Poetry - Mary Jones
• Haveth Childers Everywhere' - James Joyce
• Two Tales of Shem and Shaun' - James Joyce
• Ulysses - James Joyce
• Tropic of Cancer' - Henry Miller
• Black Spring' - Henry Miller
• Left Hand, Right Hand' - Osbert Sitwell
• Spiritual Exercises' - Stephen Spender
• Trial of a Judge' - Stephen Spender
• Poems' - Thomas Gray
• The Rambler' - Samuel Johnson
• Histoire Naturelle' - Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
• Poems of Great Britain: From Chaucer to Churchill' - John Bell