Not wishing to embarrass his family, the author published the book under the pseudonym George Orwell. The book provided a brutal look at the lives of the working poor and of those living a transient existence. Orwell’s first major work explored his time eking out a living in these two cities.

'Down and Out in Paris and London' (1933) Early Writing CareerĪfter leaving the India Imperial Force, Orwell struggled to get his writing career off the ground and took all sorts of jobs to make ends meet, including being a dishwasher. After five years in Burma, Orwell resigned his post and returned to England. Instead, he joined the India Imperial Police Force in 1922. His family did not have the money to pay for a university education. Orwell won scholarships to Wellington College and Eton College to continue his studies.Īfter completing his schooling at Eton, Orwell found himself at a dead end. What he lacked in personality, he made up for in smarts. He read works by Rudyard Kipling and H.G. He wasn't popular with his peers, and in books, he found comfort from his difficult situation. On a partial scholarship, Orwell noticed that the school treated the richer students better than the poorer ones. Cyprian's in the coastal town of Eastbourne, where he got his first taste of England's class system. Like many other boys in England, Orwell was sent to boarding school. He later wrote, 'I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued.' One of his first literary successes came at the age of 11 when he had a poem published in the local newspaper. Orwell took up writing at an early age, reportedly composing his first poem around age four. He found his father to be dull and conservative.Īccording to one biography, Orwell's first word was 'beastly.' He was a sick child, often battling bronchitis and the flu. And even after that, the pair never formed a strong bond. Orwell didn't really know his father until he retired from the service in 1912. (His younger sister, Avril, was born in 1908. His father stayed behind in India and rarely visited. His mother brought him and his older sister, Marjorie, to England about a year after his birth and settled in Henley-on-Thames. The son of a British civil servant, Orwell spent his first days in India, where his father was stationed. Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, India, on June 25, 1903.

He was a man of strong opinions who addressed some of the major political movements of his times, including imperialism, fascism and communism. George Orwell was a novelist, essayist and critic best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Orwell english language