George Orwell: the story on HearLore

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair was born on the 25th of June 1903 in Motihari, Bengal Presidency, now Bihar, British India, into a family that described itself as lower-upper-middle class. His great-great-grandfather Charles Blair was a wealthy slave-owning country gentleman who owned two Jamaican plantations, while his grandfather Thomas Richard Arthur Blair served as an Anglican clergyman. His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked as a Sub-Deputy Opium Agent in the Indian Civil Service, overseeing the production and storage of opium for sale to China. When Eric was one year old, his mother Ida Mabel Limouzin took him and his older sister Marjorie to England, leaving his father behind until 1912. The family eventually settled in Southwold, Suffolk, where Eric grew up with his two sisters, Marjorie and Avril. His early years were marked by a sense of displacement and a complex relationship with the British Empire he would later come to despise. He attended a Catholic convent school in Henley-on-Thames before winning a scholarship to St Cyprian's School, an experience he would later describe as a nightmare in his posthumously published essay Such, Such Were the Joys. It was at St Cyprian's that he first met Cyril Connolly, who would become a significant literary figure and editor of Horizon, publishing several of Orwell's essays. His time at Eton, which he attended from 1917 to 1921, was marked by a neglect of academic studies but a deep engagement with literary and political life. He was taught French by Aldous Huxley and participated in the Eton Wall Game, but his poor results meant he could not afford university. Instead, the family decided he should join the Imperial Police, the precursor of the Indian Police Service. He passed the entrance examination and sailed for Burma in October 1922, beginning a four-year stint that would profoundly shape his worldview and literary voice.

The Empire's Reluctant Servant

In Burma, Eric Blair, now operating under the name George Orwell, found himself in a position of considerable responsibility while most of his contemporaries were still at university. Appointed an Assistant District Superintendent on the 29th of November 1922, he received a monthly salary of Rs. 525, which later increased to Rs. 740. He was posted to various locations, including Maymyo, Myaungmya, Twante, and Syriam, where he witnessed the environmental devastation caused by the Burmah Oil Company's refinery. The town of Syriam was a barren waste, all vegetation killed off by the fumes of sulphur dioxide pouring out day and night from the stacks of the refinery. Blair faced hostility from the Burmese, recalling the sneering yellow faces of young men that met him everywhere and the insults hooted after him when he was at a safe distance. He described being stuck between his hatred of the empire he served and his rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make his job impossible. In Burma, he acquired a reputation as an outsider, spending much of his time alone, reading, or pursuing non-pukka activities such as attending the churches of the Karen ethnic group. He became fluent in Burmese, able to speak fluently with Burmese priests in very high-flown Burmese. He made changes to his appearance that remained for the rest of his life, including adopting a pencil moustache and acquiring some tattoos on each knuckle, small untidy blue circles believed to protect against bullets and snake bites. In April 1926, he moved to Moulmein, where his maternal grandmother lived, and was assigned to Katha in Upper Burma, where he contracted dengue fever in 1927. On leave in England in September 1927, he reappraised his life and decided against returning to Burma. He resigned from the Indian Imperial Police to become a writer, with effect from the 12th of March 1928. He drew on his experiences in the Burma police for the novel Burmese Days, published in 1934, and the essays A Hanging and Shooting an Elephant, which would become some of his most powerful works.

When and where was George Orwell born?

Eric Arthur Blair was born on the 25th of June 1903 in Motihari, Bengal Presidency, now Bihar, British India. He was born into a family that described itself as lower-upper-middle class.

What was George Orwell's role in Burma?

George Orwell served as an Assistant District Superintendent in the Imperial Police from 1922 to 1928. He was posted to various locations including Maymyo, Myaungmya, Twante, and Syriam where he witnessed environmental devastation caused by the Burmah Oil Company's refinery.

Why did George Orwell resign from the police force?

George Orwell resigned from the Indian Imperial Police to become a writer with effect from the 12th of March 1928. He decided against returning to Burma after taking leave in England in September 1927 and reappraising his life.

What book did George Orwell write about social conditions in Northern England?

The Road to Wigan Pier was published by Gollancz for the Left Book Club in 1937. The first half of the book documents his social investigations of Lancashire and Yorkshire including an evocative description of working life in the coal mines.

How did George Orwell die?

George Orwell died in the early morning of the 21st of January 1950 at the age of 46. He suffered a pulmonary artery rupture due to complications of tuberculosis.

Where is George Orwell buried?

George Orwell is interred in the churchyard of All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay. His widow appealed to friends to find a church with space in its graveyard because the graveyards in central London had no space.

The Tramp and The Writer

Back in England, Blair settled in London, moving into rooms in Portobello Road in 1927. He began to explore the poorer parts of London, imitating Jack London, whose writing he admired, particularly The People of the Abyss. On his first outing, he set out to Limehouse Causeway, spending his first night in a common lodging house, possibly George Levy's kip. For a while, he went native in his own country, dressing like a tramp and adopting the name P.S. Burton. He recorded his experiences of the low life for use in The Spike, his first published essay in English, and in the second half of his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London. In early 1928, he moved to Paris, living in the rue du Pot de Fer, a working-class district in the 5th arrondissement. His aunt Ellen Kate Limouzin lived in Paris and gave him social and financial support. He began to write novels, including an early version of Burmese Days, but nothing else survives from that period. He was more successful as a journalist, publishing articles in Monde, G. K.'s Weekly, and Le Progrès Civique. He fell seriously ill in February 1929 and was taken to the Hôpital Cochin, a free hospital where medical students were trained. His experiences there were the basis of his essay How the Poor Die, published in 1946. Shortly afterwards, he had all his money stolen from his lodging house. Whether through necessity or to collect material, he undertook menial jobs such as dishwashing in a fashionable hotel on the rue de Rivoli, which he later described in Down and Out in Paris and London. In August 1929, he sent a copy of The Spike to John Middleton Murry's New Adelphi magazine, which accepted the work for publication. In December 1929, after nearly two years in Paris, Blair returned to England and went directly to his parents' house in Southwold, a coastal town in Suffolk, which remained his base for the next five years. He became acquainted with many local people, including Brenda Salkeld, the clergyman's daughter who worked as a gym-teacher at St Felix Girls' School. Although Salkeld rejected his offer of marriage, she remained a friend and regular correspondent for many years. He also renewed friendships with older friends, such as Dennis Collings, whose girlfriend Eleanor Jacques was also to play a part in his life. His history in these years is marked by dualities and contrasts, with Blair leading a respectable, outwardly eventless life at his parents' house while simultaneously exploring the world of poverty and the down-and-outers who inhabit it.

The Road To Wigan Pier

In 1936, Victor Gollancz suggested Orwell spend a short time investigating social conditions in economically depressed Northern England. The Depression had introduced a number of working-class writers from the North of England to the reading public. It was one of these working-class authors, Jack Hilton, whom Orwell sought for advice. Orwell had written to Hilton seeking lodging and asking for recommendations on his route. Hilton was unable to provide him lodging, but suggested that he travel to Wigan rather than Rochdale, for there are the colliers and they're good stuff. On the 31st of January 1936, Orwell set out by public transport and on foot. Arriving in Manchester after the banks had closed, he had to stay in a common lodging-house. The next day, he picked up a list of contacts sent by Richard Rees. One of these, the trade union official Frank Meade, suggested Wigan, where Orwell spent February staying in dirty lodgings over a tripe shop. In Wigan, he visited many homes to see how people lived, went down Bryn Hall coal mine, and used the local public library to consult public health records and reports on working conditions in mines. During this time, he was distracted by concerns about style and possible libel in Keep the Aspidistra Flying. He made a quick visit to Liverpool and during March, stayed in south Yorkshire, spending time in Sheffield and Barnsley. As well as visiting mines, including Grimethorpe, and observing social conditions, he attended meetings of the Communist Party and of Oswald Mosley, whose speech was the usual claptrap, with the blame for everything put upon mysterious international gangs of Jews. He also made visits to his sister at Headingley, during which he visited the Brontë Parsonage at Haworth. Orwell needed somewhere he could concentrate on writing his book, and once again help was provided by Aunt Nellie, who was living at Wallington, Hertfordshire, in a very small 16th-century cottage called the Stores. Orwell took over the tenancy and moved in on the 2nd of April 1936. He started work on The Road to Wigan Pier by the end of April, but also spent hours working on the garden, planting a rose garden which is still extant, and revealing four years later that outside his work the thing he cared most about was gardening, especially vegetable gardening. He also tested the possibility of reopening the Stores as a village shop. The Road to Wigan Pier was published by Gollancz for the Left Book Club in 1937. The first half of the book documents his social investigations of Lancashire and Yorkshire, including an evocative description of working life in the coal mines. The second half is a long essay on his upbringing and the development of his political conscience, which includes an argument for socialism. Gollancz feared the second half would offend readers and added a disculpatory preface to the book while Orwell was in Spain. Orwell's research for The Road to Wigan Pier led to him being placed under surveillance by the Special Branch from 1936.

The Spanish Crucible

At the end of 1936, concerned by Francisco Franco's military uprising, Orwell decided to go to Spain to take part in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. Under the erroneous impression that he needed papers from some left-wing organisation to cross the frontier, on John Strachey's recommendation he applied unsuccessfully to Harry Pollitt, leader of the British Communist Party. Pollitt was suspicious of Orwell's political reliability; he asked him whether he would undertake to join the International Brigades and advised him to get a safe-conduct from the Spanish Embassy in Paris. Not wishing to commit himself until he had seen the situation in situ, Orwell instead used his Independent Labour Party contacts to get a letter of introduction to John McNair in Barcelona. Orwell set out for Spain on about the 23rd of December 1936, dining with Henry Miller in Paris on the way. Miller told Orwell that going to fight in the Civil War out of some sense of obligation or guilt was sheer stupidity and that the Englishman's ideas about combating Fascism, defending democracy, etc., etc., were all baloney. A few days later in Barcelona, Orwell met John McNair of the Independent Labour Party Office. The Republican government was supported by a number of factions with conflicting aims, including the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification, the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, and the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia. Orwell was at first exasperated by this kaleidoscope of political parties and trade unions. The ILP was linked to the POUM so Orwell joined the POUM. After a time at the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona, he was sent to the relatively quiet Aragon Front under Georges Kopp. By January 1937, he was at Alcubierre above sea level, in the depth of winter. There was very little military action and Orwell was shocked by the lack of munitions, food, and firewood as well as other extreme deprivations. With his Cadet Corps and police training, Orwell was quickly made a corporal. On the arrival of a British ILP Contingent about three weeks later, Orwell and the other English militiaman, Williams, were sent with them to Monte Oscuro and on to Huesca. Meanwhile, back in England, Eileen had been handling the issues relating to the publication of The Road to Wigan Pier before setting out for Spain herself, leaving Nellie Limouzin to look after the Stores. Eileen volunteered for a post in John McNair's office and with the help of Georges Kopp paid visits to her husband, bringing him English tea, chocolate, and cigars. Orwell had to spend some days in hospital with a poisoned hand and had most of his possessions stolen by the staff. He returned to the front and saw some action in a night attack on the Nationalist trenches where he chased an enemy soldier with a bayonet and bombed an enemy rifle position. In April, Orwell returned to Barcelona. Wanting to be sent to the Madrid front, which meant he must join the International Column, he approached a Communist friend attached to the Spanish Medical Aid and explained his case. Although he did not think much of the Communists, Orwell was still ready to treat them as friends and allies. That would soon change. During the Barcelona May Days, Orwell was caught up in the factional fighting. He spent much of the time on a roof, with a stack of novels, but encountered Jon Kimche from his Hampstead days during the stay. The subsequent campaign of lies and distortion carried out by the Communist press, in which the POUM was accused of collaborating with the fascists, had a dramatic effect on Orwell. Instead of joining the International Brigades as he had intended, he decided to return to the Aragon Front. Once the May fighting was over, he was approached by a Communist friend who asked if he still intended transferring to the International Brigades. Orwell expressed surprise that they should still want him, because according to the Communist press he was a fascist. After his return to the front, he was wounded in the throat by a sniper's bullet. At 1.83 meters, Orwell was considerably taller than the Spanish fighters and had been warned against standing against the trench parapet. Unable to speak, and with blood pouring from his mouth, Orwell was carried on a stretcher to Siétamo, loaded on an ambulance and sent to hospital in Lleida. He recovered sufficiently to get up and on the 27th of May 1937 was sent on to Tarragona and two days later to a POUM sanatorium in the suburbs of Barcelona. The bullet had missed his main artery by the barest margin and his voice was barely audible. It had been such a clean shot that the wound immediately went through the process of cauterisation. He received electrotherapy treatment and was declared medically unfit for service. By the middle of June, the political situation in Barcelona had deteriorated and the POUM, painted by the pro-Soviet Communists as a Trotskyist organisation, was outlawed and under attack. Members, including Kopp, were arrested and others were in hiding. Orwell and his wife were under threat and had to lie low, although they broke cover to try to help Kopp. They finally escaped from Spain by train. In the first week of July 1937, Orwell arrived back at Wallington. On the 13th of July 1937, a deposition was presented to the Tribunal for Espionage and High Treason in Valencia, charging the Orwells with rabid Trotskyism and being agents of the POUM. The trial of the leaders of the POUM and of Orwell in his absence took place in Barcelona in October and November 1938. Observing events from French Morocco, Orwell wrote that they were only a by-product of the Russian Trotskyist trials and from the start every kind of lie, including flagrant absurdities, has been circulated in the Communist press. Orwell's experiences in the Spanish Civil War gave rise to Homage to Catalonia, published in 1938.

The War And The Farm

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Orwell's wife Eileen started working in the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information in central London, staying during the week with her family in Greenwich. Orwell submitted his name to the Central Register for war work, but nothing transpired. He returned to Wallington, and in late 1939 he wrote material for his first collection of essays, Inside the Whale. For the next year, he was occupied writing reviews for plays, films, and books for The Listener, Time and Tide, and New Adelphi. On the 29th of March 1940, his long association with Tribune began with a review of a sergeant's account of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. At the beginning of 1940, the first edition of Connolly's Horizon appeared, and this provided a new outlet for Orwell's work and new literary contacts. In May, the Orwells took lease of a flat in London at Dorset Chambers, Chagford Street, Marylebone. It was the time of the Dunkirk evacuation, and the death in Flanders of Eileen's brother Laurence O'Shaughnessy caused her considerable grief and long-term depression. Orwell was declared unfit for any kind of military service by the Medical Board in June, but soon joined the Home Guard. He shared Tom Wintringham's socialist vision for the Home Guard as a revolutionary People's Militia. His lecture notes for instructing platoon members include advice on street fighting, field fortifications, and the use of mortars. Sergeant Orwell recruited Fredric Warburg to his unit. During the Battle of Britain, he spent weekends with Warburg and his new Zionist friend, Tosco Fyvel, at Warburg's house at Twyford, Berkshire. At Wallington, he worked on England Your England and in London wrote reviews for periodicals. Visiting Eileen's family in Greenwich brought him face-to-face with the effects of the German Blitz bombings. In 1940, he first worked for the BBC as a producer on their Indian Section, while the broadcaster and writer Venu Chitale was his secretary. In mid-1940, Warburg, Fyvel, and Orwell planned Searchlight Books. Eleven volumes eventually appeared, of which Orwell's The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, published in February 1941, was the first. Early in 1941, he began to write for the American Partisan Review which linked Orwell with the New York Intellectuals who were also anti-Stalinist, and contributed to the Gollancz anthology The Betrayal of the Left, written in the light of the Molotov, Ribbentrop Pact. He applied unsuccessfully for a job at the Air Ministry. Meanwhile, he was still writing reviews of books and plays and met the novelist Anthony Powell. He took part in radio broadcasts for the Eastern Service of the BBC. In March, the Orwells moved to a seventh-floor flat at Langford Court, St John's Wood, while at Wallington Orwell was digging for victory by planting potatoes. In August 1941, Orwell finally obtained war work when he was taken on full-time by the BBC's Eastern Service. He supervised cultural broadcasts to India, to counter propaganda from Nazi Germany designed to undermine imperial links. At the end of August, he had a dinner with H. G. Wells which degenerated into a row because Wells had taken offence at observations Orwell made about him in a Horizon article. In October, Orwell had a bout of bronchitis; the illness recurred frequently. David Astor was looking for a provocative contributor for The Observer Sunday newspaper, and invited Orwell to write for him; the first article appeared in March 1942. In early 1942, Eileen changed jobs to work at the Ministry of Food, and in mid-1942, the Orwells moved to a larger flat, 10a Mortimer Crescent in Maida Vale/Kilburn. At the BBC, Orwell introduced Voice, a literary programme for his Indian broadcasts, and by now was leading an active social life with literary friends, particularly on the political left. Late in 1942, he started writing regularly for the left-wing weekly Tribune, directed by Labour MPs Aneurin Bevan and George Strauss. In March 1943, Orwell's mother died, and around this time, he told Moore he was starting work on a book, which turned out to be Animal Farm. In September 1943, Orwell resigned from the BBC following a report confirming his fears that few Indians listened to the broadcasts. Malcolm Muggeridge recalls that he asked Orwell if such broadcasts were useful. Perhaps not, he said, somewhat crestfallen. He added, more cheerfully, that anyway, no one could pick up the broadcasts except on short-wave sets which cost about the equivalent of an Indian labourer's earnings over 10 years. But he was also keen to concentrate on writing Animal Farm. On the 24th of November 1943, six days before his last day of service, his adaptation of the fairy tale, Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes, was broadcast. It was a genre in which he was greatly interested and which appeared on Animal Farm's title page. He resigned from the Home Guard on medical grounds. In November 1943, Orwell was appointed literary editor at Tribune, where his assistant was his friend Jon Kimche. Orwell was on the staff until early 1945, writing over 80 book reviews, and on the 3rd of December 1943, started his regular personal column As I Please. He was still writing reviews for other magazines, including Partisan Review, Horizon, and the New York Nation. By April 1944, Animal Farm was ready for publication. Gollancz refused to publish it, considering it an attack on the regime of the Soviet Union, a crucial ally in the war. A similar fate was met from other publishers, including T. S. Eliot at Faber & Faber, until Jonathan Cape agreed to take it. Orwell and Eileen wanted children, but he was sterile and she may also have been infertile due to uterine cancer. In May, the Orwells had the opportunity to adopt a child, thanks to the contacts of Eileen's sister-in-law Gwen O'Shaughnessy, then a doctor in Newcastle upon Tyne. In June, a V-1 flying bomb struck Mortimer Crescent and the Orwells had to find somewhere else to live. Orwell had to scrabble around in the rubble for his books, which he had finally managed to transfer from Wallington, carting them away in a wheelbarrow. Another blow was Cape's reversal of his plan to publish Animal Farm. The decision followed his visit to Peter Smollett, an official at the Ministry of Information, who was later identified as a Soviet agent. The Orwells spent time in the North East, near Carlton, County Durham, dealing with the adoption of a boy whom they named Richard Horatio Blair. He had led a quiet life as Richard Blair, not Richard Orwell. By September 1944, they had set up home in Islington, at 27b Canonbury Square. Baby Richard joined them there, and Eileen gave up her work at the Ministry of Food to look after her family. Secker & Warburg had agreed to publish Animal Farm, planned for the following March, although it did not appear in print until August 1945. By February 1945, David Astor had invited Orwell to become a war correspondent for The Observer. He went to liberated Paris, then to Germany and Austria, to cities including Cologne and Stuttgart. He was never in the front line, under fire, but followed the troops closely, sometimes entering a captured town within a day of its fall while dead bodies lay in the streets. Some of his reports were published in the Manchester Evening News. While he was there, Eileen went into hospital for a hysterectomy. She had not given Orwell much notice about the operation because of worries about the cost, and because she expected to make a speedy recovery; however, she died on the 29th of March 1945 of an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic she was given. It was expected that he would give up his nine-month-old adopted son, but he did not. Orwell returned home and then went back to Europe. He returned to London to cover the 1945 general election at the beginning of July. Animal Farm: A Fairy Story was published in Britain on the 17th of August 1945, and in America on the 26th of August 1946.

The Final Years And Legacy

Animal Farm had particular resonance in the post-war climate and its worldwide success made Orwell a sought-after figure. For the next four years, Orwell mixed journalistic work, mainly for Tribune, The Observer, and the Manchester Evening News, though he also contributed to many small-circulation political and literary magazines, with writing his best-known work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, which was published in 1949. He was a leading figure in the so-called Shanghai Club, named after a restaurant in Soho, of left-leaning and émigré journalists, among them E. H. Carr, Sebastian Haffner, Isaac Deutscher, Barbara Ward, and Jon Kimche. In the year following Eileen's death, he published around 130 articles and a selection of his Critical Essays, while remaining active in various political lobbying campaigns. He employed a housekeeper, Susan Watson, to look after his adopted son at the Islington flat, which visitors now described as bleak. In September, he spent a fortnight on the island of Jura in the Inner Hebrides and saw it as a place to escape from the hassle of London literary life. David Astor was instrumental in arranging a place for Orwell on Jura. Astor's family owned Scottish estates in the area and a fellow Old Etonian, Robin Fletcher, had a property on the island. In late 1945 and early 1946, Orwell made several hopeless and unwelcome marriage proposals to younger women, including Celia Kirwan, Ann Popham, who happened to live in the same block of flats, and Sonia Brownell, one of Connolly's coterie at the Horizon office. Orwell suffered a tubercular haemorrhage in February 1946 but disguised his illness. In 1945 or early 1946, while still living at Canonbury Square, Orwell wrote an article on British Cookery, complete with recipes, commissioned by the British Council. Given the post-war shortages, both parties agreed not to publish it. His sister Marjorie died in May. On the 22nd of May 1946, Orwell set off with his two-year-old son, who he treated as a mini-adult, to live on Jura in Barnhill, an abandoned farmhouse without outbuildings. Conditions at the farmhouse were primitive but the natural history and the challenge of improving the place appealed to Orwell. His son found out later that Orwell was terrified of passing on his tuberculosis to him by hugging or kissing him, and concerned that this would interfere with his bonding with the child. Orwell returned to London in late 1946 and picked up his literary journalism again. Now a well-known writer, he was swamped with work. Apart from a visit to Jura in the new year, he stayed in London for one of the coldest British winters on record and with such a national shortage of fuel that he burnt his furniture and his child's toys. The heavy smog in the days before the Clean Air Act 1956 did little to help his health, about which he was reticent, keeping clear of medical attention. Meanwhile, he had to cope with rival claims of publishers Gollancz and Warburg for publishing rights. About this time, he co-edited a collection titled British Pamphleteers with Reginald Reynolds. As a result of the success of Animal Farm, Orwell was expecting a large bill from the Inland Revenue and he contacted a firm of accountants. The firm advised Orwell to establish a company to own his copyright and to receive his royalties and set up a service agreement so that he could draw a salary; George Orwell Productions Ltd was set up on the 12th of September 1947. Orwell left London for Jura on the 10th of April 1947. In July, he ended the lease on the Wallington cottage. Back on Jura, he worked on Nineteen Eighty-Four. During that time, his sister's family visited, and Orwell led a disastrous boating expedition, on the 19th of August, which nearly led to loss of life whilst trying to cross the notorious Gulf of Corryvreckan and gave him a soaking which was not good for his health. In December, a chest specialist was summoned from Glasgow who pronounced Orwell seriously ill, and a week before Christmas 1947, he was in Hairmyres Hospital. Tuberculosis was diagnosed and the request for permission to import the new medicine streptomycin to treat Orwell went as far as Aneurin Bevan, then Minister of Health. David Astor helped with supply and payment and Orwell began his course of streptomycin on the 19th or the 20th of February 1948. By the end of July 1948, Orwell was able to return to Jura and by December, he had finished the manuscript of Nineteen Eighty-Four. In January 1949, in a very weak condition, he set off for a sanatorium at Cranham, Gloucestershire. However, streptomycin could not be continued, as he developed toxic epidermal necrolysis, a rare side effect. The sanatorium at Cranham consisted of a series of small wooden chalets or huts in a remote part of the Cotswolds near Stroud. Visitors were shocked by Orwell's appearance and concerned by the shortcomings and ineffectiveness of the treatment. Friends were worried about his finances, but by now he was comparatively well off. He was writing to many of his friends, including Jacintha Buddicom, who had rediscovered him. In March 1949, he was visited by Celia Kirwan, who had just started working for a Foreign Office unit, the Information Research Department, set up by the Labour government to publish anti-communist propaganda; Orwell gave her a list of people he considered unsuitable as IRD authors because of their pro-communist leanings. Orwell's list, not published until 2003, consisted mainly of writers, and some actors and Labour MPs. To further promote Animal Farm, the IRD commissioned cartoon strips, drawn by Norman Pett, to be placed in newspapers across the globe. Orwell received more streptomycin treatment and improved slightly. This repeat dose of streptomycin, especially after the side effect had been noticed, has been called ill-advised. He then received penicillin, presumably to treat his bronchiectasis; doctors knew it was ineffective against tuberculosis. In June 1949, Nineteen Eighty-Four was published to critical acclaim. Orwell's health continued to decline. In mid-1949, he courted Sonia Brownell, believed to be the model for Julia, the heroine of Nineteen Eighty-Four, and they announced their engagement in September. Shortly afterwards, he was removed to University College Hospital in London. Brownell took charge of Orwell's affairs and attended him diligently in the hospital. Friends of Orwell stated that Brownell helped him through the painful last months of his life and, according to Anthony Powell, cheered Orwell up greatly. However, others have argued that she may have been attracted to him primarily because of his fame. In September 1949, Orwell invited his accountant Jack Harrison to visit him at the hospital, and Harrison claimed that Orwell then asked him to become director of George Orwell Productions Ltd and to manage the company, but there was no independent witness. Orwell's wedding took place in the hospital room on the 13th of October 1949, with David Astor as best man. Further meetings were held with his accountant, at which Harrison and the Blairs were confirmed as directors of the company. Orwell's health was in decline again by Christmas. Harrison visited later and claimed that Orwell had given him 25% of the company. At the age of 46, Orwell suffered a pulmonary artery rupture due to complications of tuberculosis, and died in the early morning of the 21st of January 1950. Orwell had requested to be buried according to the rites of the Church of England, in the nearest convenient cemetery. The graveyards in central London had no space, and so in an effort to ensure his last wishes could be fulfilled, his widow appealed to his friends to see whether any of them knew of a church with space in its graveyard. David Astor arranged for Orwell to be interred in the churchyard of All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay, on the 26th of January 1950. The funeral was organised by Anthony Powell and Malcolm Muggeridge. Powell chose the hymns: All people that on earth do dwell, Guide me, O thou great Redeemer, and Ten thousand times ten thousand. Orwell's adopted son, Richard Horatio Blair, was brought up by Orwell's sister Avril, his legal guardian, and her husband, Bill Dunn. In 1979, Sonia Brownell brought a High Court action against Harrison when he declared an intention to subdivide his 25 per cent share of the company between his three children. For Sonia, the consequence of this manoeuvre would have made getting overall control of the company three times more difficult. She was considered to have a strong case, but was becoming increasingly ill and eventually was persuaded to settle out of court on the 2nd of November 1980. She died on the 11th of December 1980, aged 62. Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective Orwellian, describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices, is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as Big Brother, Thought Police, Room 101, Newspeak, memory hole, doublethink, and thoughtcrime. In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.