George Orwell Biography

George orwell
Biography


George Orwell, pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair, was born in 1903 in Motihari, Bengal. Eric had an older sister named Marjorie and a younger sister named Avril. With hischaracteristic humour, he would later describe his family's background as "lower-upper-middle class."
Education
At the age of five, Blair was sent to a small Anglican parish school in Henley, YoungEric attended St Cyprian's on a scholarship that allowed his parents to pay only half of the usual fees. Later in life he wrote that he had been "relatively happy" at Eton, which allowed its studentsconsiderable independence, but also that he ceased doing serious work after arriving there.
Burma and afterwards
Eric joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. He resigned and returned to hisdeep, lifelong affection for the English tradition and countryside: George is the patron saint of England while the River Orwell in Suffolk was one of his most beloved English sites.
Orwell lived forseveral years in poverty, sometimes homeless, sometimes doing itinerant work.
Spanish Civil War
Soon after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Orwell volunteered to fight for the Republicansagainst Franco's Nationalist uprising. In Homage to Catalonia he described his admiration for the apparent absence of a class structure in the revolutionary areas of Spain he visited.
Orwell was shot inthe neck (near Huesca) on May 20, 1937, an experience he described in his short essay "Wounded by a Fascist Sniper", as well as in Homage to Catalonia. He and his wife Eileen left Spain.
World warand after
Orwell began supporting himself by writing book reviews for the New English Weekly until 1940. During World War II he was a member of the Home Guard.
In 1944 Orwell finished hisanti-Stalinist allegory Animal Farm, which was published the following year with great critical and popular success. The royalties from Animal Farm provided Orwell with a comfortable income for the first time...