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Top 10 interesting facts about George Orwell

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This name should remind you of The Animal Farm. Yes, The Animal Farm, the popular book. George Orwell is known for writing books so intriguing that some were banned in some countries around the world! Because of what the Animal Farm spoke about, the book was banned in America and many other countries.

The author, who was also a polyglot- having the ability to speak seven languages, had a very short but interesting life, and here are ten facts about George Orwell that will interest you!

1. The animal Farm & 1948

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Most people have heard of the phrase ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’. That is an excerpt from George Orwell’s book, The Animal Farm which was a depiction of the Russian Revolution and its oppressive communist way of governance; showing how power can be used to foster corruption and oppression.Ìý

One of his other famous books was nineteen eighty-four, which also catapulted him to fame.

2. He changed his name!

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George Orwell was not born George Orwell! Surprise! surprise! George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair in June of 1903. He got the name Orwell from the River Orwell in East Anglia. His book ‘Down and Out in Â鶹APP and London’, carried the name George Orwell and it stuck. Many people assumed that it was his actual name and therefore he used it in all of his books even though he did not entirely drop his original name!

3. He hated school

It is hard to imagine that one of the world’s best authors hated school! You would think that one of the world’s most brilliant literary minds would have loved school from day one. But instead, George Orwell while in Eastbourne at the St Cyprian School for Boys, penned down an article which gave a very interesting account of his experience at the school; part of it describing the school and the authorities as ‘terrible and all-powerful monsters’! ‘Such Were the Joys’, the name of the essay which had these frustrations was published in 1968 after his death.

When he was in another institution he sent a birthday message to the town surveyor. Birthday messages are harmless unless you, like George, attach a dead rat to the message and sent it to hi. Yes, he got himself expelled!

4. Died of TB

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George Orwell died of tuberculosis at the age of 46 at a hospital in London. Still very young and full of ideas. Even though streptomycin, a cure for the disease was available in most parts of Europe and that he could get it, he reacted badly to the drug. His hair fell out and his nails degenerated; the doctor was still not very familiar to the drug and did not how much dosage was right. He tried the drug again in 1949 and got the same reaction, and unfortunately died shortly after that.Ìý

5. Fought the Spanish Civil War

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He wrote his book on socialism ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ in 1937 which was a depiction of his life among the poor, and while the book was going to print, he was in Spain where he joined the Republican militia to fight during the civil war. He fought there until he got seriously injured and the injury affected his throat which somehow affected his speech. He however had to flee Spain in May of 1937 because he was fighting in Barcelona against the communists. He realized that his life was in danger and fled to England. He would later be known to fear communism!

Ìý6. The near-destruction of The Animal Farm

A German bomb was shot at his town destroying most buildings including the house where he, his wife, and son lived. Luckily, they were not home at the time and no one got hurt, fortunately. His work was destroyed and he and his son spent lots of time going through the rubble to try recovering some things and that is how they salvaged the manuscript for The Animal Farm! Phew!

7. He served in the police department in Burma

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Orwell’s father was a British Official in the Indian Government in Burma; and his mother was from Burma. He went to school in England after their return and even though he was poor, he was extremely brilliant and he got two scholarships in two schools. He took the first in Wellington and then took the other one in Eaton later. He did not continue with his university education after that, instead choosing to serve in the Burmese Police where he served as the Indian Imperial Police. He was doing very well in the police service but over time, he noticed that the people of Burma were not happy being ruled by the British and it went against his values. And also, he had always wanted to be a writer which made him even more unsettled and he resigned in 1928 while on holiday in England.Ìý

8. He lived the life of a beggar

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After his resignation and having felt out of place in Burma during his police service there, Orwell decided to mingle and live among the lowly paid and the poor in the society. So, he wore torn clothes, lived in slums in Â鶹APP, lived in low housing with beggars and street families. He joined the workforce going to Kentish hopfields for work and it is even said that he worked as a dishwasher in London. Talk about living up to his character because this experience gave him very good material for his award-winning and spellbinding book, Down and Out in Â鶹APP and London!ÌýÌý

9. He really did not have a stand

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Orwell at the point of his return from Burma identified himself as an anarchist and was one for a few years which was also necessitated by is hatred for the high life and imperialism.ÌýEven though he was too libertarian in his thinking, he at some point called himself a socialist, then a communist!

He was known to even have snitched on some artistes and politicians as being communists in 1949 after the war. Some of them being Charlie Chaplin, George Bernard Shaw, and Katharine Hepbaw among others!

10. Cold war

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George Orwell is known to have coined the term ‘Cold War’ in relation to the conflict between the Soviet Union and the USA! The term was mentioned in an article which he wrote a few months after the bomb attack in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.Ìý

The popular TV show Big Brother got its plot and name from one of his books which ad a character who goes by the same name who spied on all his subjects using cameras!