"Went over to Liverpool to see the Deiners and Garrett", George Orwell wrote in his Wigan Pier Diary in February 1936. In August 2018, Richard Blair, son of George Orwell, met Sean Garrett, grandson of George Garrett, in Liverpool. Mike Morris of the George Garrett Archive explains more about the meeting and how it came…Read more Over To Liverpool
Nigel Bryant, author of our popular study of the origins and rivals to George Orwell's Animal Farm, and author of his own sequel, Manor Farm, now applies his quotidian expertise in psychology to an examination of Eric Blair as he became George Orwell. * George Orwell – One of a Kind by Nigel Bryant I…Read more One of a Kind
"a great honour" Orwell Archive and UNESCO Memory of the World International Register We are pleased to announce that the Orwell papers in the Orwell Archive at University College London has been formally inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register. This is a prestigious award, achieved after a very competitive…Read more Orwell: World Heritage
George Orwell's first appearance on the wireless was in a scripted discussion of "The Proletarian Author" with Desmond Hawkins. Professor Peter Davison's notes record that this was part of the series ‘The Writer in the Witness-Box’, with this contribution broadcast on the BBC Home Service on the 6th December 1940. The talk was published in…Read more Wireless First
Some Sutherland insights (and errors) * Richard Lance Keeble sniffs out some useful Orwellian insights in the work of the controversial biographer, John Sutherland * John Sutherland’s Orwell’s Nose: A Pathological Biography (London, Reaktion Books, 2016) has proven to be highly controversial. While its focus on ‘smell narratives’ throughout Orwell’s work is both original…Read more Sniffing Out
In 2018 Eton College unveiled a bust of their former student, Eric Blair, who left the school in 1921. He has become famous since as 'George Orwell'. Sarah Warren-Macmillan, college librarian, described the unveiling, and Blair/Orwell's life, in the college magazine. Our thanks to Sarah Warren-Macmillan, Eton College librarian. Uploaded 2nd…Read more Eric Blair at Eton
George Orwell's first novel, Burmese Days, set in the country in which he had been a police officer from 1922 to 1927, was regarded by the book trade as so controversial that it was not published in the UK at first. It was published in the USA in October 1934. Image: Wikipedia After much checking…Read more Reading the Raj
