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Classic Authors: George Orwell

© Susan Jensen

George Orwell remains famous for two satires–Animal Farm(1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four(1949)–both written after he had reached middle age. Yet, Orwell spent much of his life writing and seeking adventures to turn into books. Struck with wanderlust and a desire for excitement, he roamed the world gathering material, which he turned into essays and articles. All of these experiences helped him write his two greatest works and establish a solid place for himself in literary history.

Like all men, the author began his life as an obscure boy. He was born in 1903 in the Indian village Motihari, near the border of Nepal. His parents, Richard Walmesley and Ida Mabel Blair, named their second child Eric Arthur Blair. The Blair Family led a pleasant existence in India, where Richard worked as an agent in the Opium Department of the Indian civil service. Still, when Eric turned four, he moved back to England with his mother and elder sister, while their father stayed to man his post, a job he held until retiring in 1912. Back in Europe, Eric attended St. Cyprian’s Preparatory School in Sussex, a very unhappy time for him. At 13, Eric won a scholarship to Wellington; soon after, he won another to Eton. Although he had worked hard at the prep school, he now studied only the subjects that suited him. He knew he wanted to be a writer, so he concentrated on reading the authors that interested him.

In 1922, Eric Blair found himself longing for action. He joined the Indian Imperial Police, which took him to Burma for training. He served on the police force there for five years, finding adventure in his job and romances with native women. In 1927, he resigned his post. Later, he would write about his experiences in Shooting An Elephant(1950).

Twenty-four-year-old Eric returned to London, settling in a dingy room on Portobello Road., and began teaching himself how to write. He locked himself in his unheated room and wrote until his fingers were numb. Then, needing new material, he spent the Spring of 1928 living among the poor in London and Paris. He finished A Scullion’s Diary, a book chronicling the experience, in 1930. This original version of Down and Out was rejected by two publishers. Eric set it aside and began work on Burmese Days(1934). Mrs. Blair, who had been instructed to burn the Scullion manuscript, instead took it to a literary agent and bullied him to read it. The text appeared in 1933 under the title Down and Out in Paris and London. The book was followed by A Clergyman’s Daughter(1935) and Keep the Aspidistra Flying(1936).

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