George Orwell with POUM Militia on the Aragon Font in the Spanish

Revolution{George is the tallest figure at the back}

In May of 1944, while doodle-bugs were dropping all over London, Eric Blair (the real name of George Orwell) and his wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy were told of a mother who gave birth to a son she couldn’t keep due to a wartime affair. Eager to become parents (Eric thought he was sterile, simply because he hadn’t had any children up to that point), the new parents were able to adopt the boy in June. They named him Richard Horatio Blair; the first name coming from Eric’s father’s name and “Horatio” after an uncle. Eric and Eileen took to the new baby and moved from their old flat at 10a Mortimer Crescent, Kilburn to 27b Canonbury Square, Islington, North London. A bomb had caved in the ceiling at Mortimer Crescent right before adopting the boy, so the new move was a must. November 1946. Journalist and photographer Vernon Richards was commissioned to take these photos of Orwell Richard in the Canonbury flat.

Down and almost out in Scotland.

George Orwell with tuberculosis and getting

streptomycin in 1948

Makeover for Orwell's Indian home

Monday, 1 August 2005

Confessions of a Book Reviewer

Politics and the English Language

The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism And The English Genius

Notes on Nationalism

Wells, Hitler And The World State

How The Poor Die

In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse

Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool

Reflections of Ghandi

Rudyard Kipling

Charles Dickens

Looking Back On The Spanish War

Spilling The Spanish Beans

The Art of Donald McGill