Biography

Room 101 in "1984", a nightmarish room where the individual's worst fear comes true, was named after a conference room at the BBC, where Orwell had to sit through meetings he found boring.

He is buried in the graveyard of Sutton Courtenay church, near Abingdon in Oxfordshire, although he has no connection with the village. He had left instructions that he wanted to be buried in the nearest graveyard to wherever he died. However, he died in central London and none of the London churches had space for him to be buried. Fearing that his body would have to be cremated instead, his widow asked each of her friends around the country to approach their local vicar to see if their church had room. This is how he comes to be buried in Sutton Courtenay--purely by chance. His grave bears just the words, "Eric Arthur Blair / Born June 25th 1903 / Died January 21st 1950" with no mention being made of his more well-known pen-name or even the fact that he had been a famous author.

Chose the title of his magnum opus "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by inverting the last two digits of the year he completed the manuscript (1948).

Recorded propaganda broadcasts for Great Britain during World War II that were broadcast in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In these broadcasts, which were a mixture of news, opinion and sparring against the propaganda of the pro-Japanese Indian rebel Subhas Chandra Bose, one can see the ideological underpinnings of his novels "1984" and "Animal Farm"--an aversion to tyranny, anyone's tyranny.

As an example of his socialist views, the author spent some time living on the streets among tramps, around London and areas of Kent. Orwell gave a detailed account of his experiences in his diaries.

Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

He who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past.

No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.

No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid . . . Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.