George Orwell: A Life in Letters (79 page)

[XIX, 3511, pp. 486–7; handwritten]

1
.
Vernon Richards* (1915–2001) and Marie-Louise Richards (1918–49) were very active in the Anarchist movement. They both took photographs of Orwell at his request for use in newspapers and magazines and, in 1946, photographed him with his adopted son, Richard. (See
George Orwell at Home (and Among the Anarchists): Essays and Photographs
,
Freedom Press, 1998.)

To Roger Senhouse*

26 December 1948

Barnhill Isle of Jura Argyll

Dear Roger,

Thanks so much for your letter. As to the blurb. I really don’t think the approach in the draft you sent me is the right one. It makes the book sound as though it were a thriller mixed up with a love story, & I didn’t intend it to be primarily that. What it is really meant to do is to discuss the implications of dividing the world up into ‘Zones of influence’ (I thought of it in 1944 as a result of the Teheran Conference), & in addition to indicate by parodying them the intellectual implications of totalitarianism. It has always seemed to me that people have not faced up to these & that, eg., the persecution of scientists in Russia
¹
is simply part of a logical process which should have been foreseeable 10–20 years ago. When you get to the proof stage, how would it be to get some eminent person who might be interested, eg. Bertrand Russell
²
or Lancelot Hogben,
³
to give his opinions about the book, & (if he consented) use a piece of that as the blurb? There are a number of people one might choose from.

I am going into a sanatorium as from 6th Jan., & unless there is some last-minute slip-up my address will be, The Cotswold Sanatorium, Cranham, Glos.

Love to all

George

[XIX, 3513, pp. 487–8; handwritten]

1
.
See
19.3.47
.

2
.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970; 3rd Earl Russell), philosopher, mathematician, lecturer, and writer. Among the many causes for which he fought perhaps the most important was that for nuclear disarmament. (See his ‘George Orwell’,
World Review
, new series 16, June 1950.)

3
.
Lancelot Hogben (1
895–1975), scientist and author, first achieved distinction as a geneticist and endocrinologist but later became known to a very wide public for a series of books that introduced science and language to the general reader, especially
Mathematics for the Million
(1936), and
Science for the Citizen
(1938).

Cranham, University College

Hospital, and Orwell’s Death

1949–1950

On 2 January 1949 Orwell left Jura for the last time. He became a patient at The Cotswold Sanatorium in Cranham, Gloucestershire, a mile or two from where Laurie Lee, the author of
Cider with Rosie,
grew up at Slad.
The description of how patients were cared for now sounds harsh but at the time was thought beneficial. Films of such hospitals, with patients lying out in the open air, often in near freezing conditions, can produce quite remarkably contrasting audience reactions. When Fredric and Pamela Warburg came to see him they were shocked by what they saw and the seeming lack of treatment he was receiving (see note following 18 January 1949).

Nineteen Eighty-Four
was hastily set and proofed by Secker & Warburg in London and by Harcourt, Brace in New York. Orwell corrected the proofs in March and in the same month was strong enough to protest vigorously at the attempts in New York to cut out ‘about a fifth or a quarter of the book’. He also demanded that the conversion of the metric measurements he had shown practised in 1984 – which had been changed back to imperial measure by Harcourt, Brace – revert to metric measurements. In June this, his last book, was published in London and New York (as
1984
) and in July the American Book of the Month Club printed some 190,000 copies. Late in August NBC broadcast a radio dramatisation with David Niven as Winston Smith. Its and Orwell’s fame, were almost instantaneous.

On 14 February (St Valentine’s Day), Jacintha Buddicom, having discovered that her childhood playmate, Eric Blair, was George Orwell, wrote to him, to his delight. At the end of March Celia Kirwan came to see him on behalf of the Information Research Department which had been set up by the Labour Government to try to counteract the Soviet’s ‘global and damaging campaign to undermine Western power and influence’. He did not feel strong enough to write for the
IRD
but suggested names of those who might do so and also those too ‘unreliable’ to be asked.

In September he was transferred to University College Hospital in London. He was probably past being cured but he was well cared for, and friends could drop in to see him. It was in this room that he married Sonia Brownell on 13 October. On 1
8 January 1950 he signed his Will on the eve of his proposed journey to Switzerland. Alas, before he could go, he died of a massive haemorrhage of the lungs in the early hours of Saturday, 21 January 1950.

Dr Bruce Dick* to David Astor*

5 January 1949

as from The Peel, Busby [south of Glasgow]

Dear Mr David,°

I am sorry for the delay in reply to your letter.

I was for a time in correspondence with Eric Blair. It was obvious° a relapse story, presumably of fairly acute onset. When we saw him in Sept. we thought he was as good as when he left us.

I had offered to take him into our hospital or this one. However he had a hankering for the less rigorous south. He had decided on Mundesley
¹
I expect the delay in getting fixed up made him decide on the Cotswold Sanatorium.
²
I have not been in touch with the Superintendent personally, but one of my assistants sent a detailed history.

I believe the disease will respond again to a course of streptomycin. It can now be procured more easily at home. Certainly no other form of treatment is available.

It is all bad luck for such a fine character & gifted man. I know he gets great heart from your continued comradeship & kindness.

I hope the poor fellow will do well. It is now obvious that he will need to live a most sheltered life in a sanatorium environment. I fear the dream of Jura must fade out.

If I can be of the least help, I will. If he was to come north later we would give him refuge.

With kind regards.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Dick

[XX, 3518, pp. 13–14; handwritten]

1
.
On the east coast of England about 20 to 22 miles northeast of Norwich. It is not known why he did not go there. Gwen O’Shaughnessy helped him find a place at Cranham.

2
.
Orwell was admitted to The Cotswold Sanatorium on 6 January 1949. Richard Rees drove Orwell on the first stage of the long journey from Barnhill to Cranham (
George Orwell: Fugitive from the Camp of Victory
, p. 1
50). He notes that at Barnhill, Orwell ‘was certainly happy. . . . He felt that he was at last putting down roots. But in reality it was obvious that he had chosen a too rocky soil’ (p. 149). Orwell completed his journey by train.

To David Astor*

12 January 1949

The Cotswold Sanatorium
¹

Cranham, Glos.

Dear David,

Thanks so much for your two wires & the offer about the streptomycin. But at present they aren’t treating me with strepto, & in any case it appears that it is now easier to get & comparatively cheap. They are giving me something called P.A.S.
²
which I gather stands for para-amino-salicylic acid. This sounds rather as if it was just aspirin in disguise, but I assume it isn’t. We will give it a trial any way. If it doesn’t work I can always have another go of strepto. This seems quite a nice place & comfortable. If you can come any time I should love it, though of course don’t put yourself out. I can even arrange meals for you if I get notice. I have felt better the last week or so but I am not going to attempt any work for at least a month.

Yours

George

P.S. Looking at the map this isn’t so very far from your Abingdon place by road. I’ve never been in Glos. before but I think it must be rather like the Oxfordshire country I knew as a little boy.

[XX, 3520, pp. 15–16; handwritten]

1
.
Cranham was a private sanatorium 900 feet up in the Cotswold hills between Stroud and Gloucester with views across the Bristol Channel to the mountains of Wales. It is only a mile or two from Slad, described in
Cider with Rosie
(1959) by Laurie Lee. The patients were in individual chalets with central heating; rest, altitude and fresh, cold air were then believed to be appropriate treatments for tuberculosis (Crick, p. 553). The resident physicians were Geoffrey A. Hoffman BA,
MB
,
TC
, Dublin, and Margaret A. Kirkman, MB, BS, London. But see
18.1.49
to Fredric Warburg.

2
.
P.A.S. was a chemotherapeutic drug introduced in 1946 for the treatment of tuberculosis. It was only slightly effective used alone and was usually combined with isoniazid or streptomycin. Such a combination delayed the development of the disease. Shelden notes that these drugs were so new that no doctors ‘had enough experience with them to understand the best way to use them in treating advanced cases such as Orwell’s. He might have benefited from smaller doses or from a combination of drugs and other forms of treatment. Unfortunately, the most potent drug—isoniazid—was not developed for use in tuberculosis cases until
1952
. . . . But the fact that he was given
PAS
at the sanatorium in Cranham shows that he was receiving the latest treatment for the disease. The doctors there seem to have made every effort to achieve an improvement in his condition’ (pp. 466–7).

To Leonard Moore*

17 January 1949

The Cotswold Sanatorium

Cranham

Dear Moore,

I enclose the 6 contracts,
¹
duly signed. Thanks also for sending the copies of
Burmese Days
, & the magazine with that cartoon.

I am glad the new book is fixed up for the
USA
. I assume it does no harm for it to have a different title here & there.
²
Warburg seems to prefer the title
1984
, & I think I prefer it slightly myself.
³
But I think it would be better to write it
Nineteen Eighty-four
,
but I expect to see Warburg shortly & I’ll talk to him about that. It’s possible that the American publishers will want to cut out the Appendix,
⁴
which of course is not a usual thing to have in something purporting to be a novel, but I would like to retain it if possible.

The above address will, I am afraid, find me for the next 2 or 3 months. It is a nice place & I am quite comfortable. I am trying to do no work whatever, which I think is the wisest thing at the moment. So, with reference to your other letter, could you tell
Harper’s Bazaar
that I would have liked to do the article, but have been seriously ill & cannot undertake anything. I dare say in a month or so I shall be fit to begin working again, but for the moment I do not want to make any commitments.

Yours sincerely

Eric Blair

[XX, 3525, pp. 19–20; handwritten]

1
.
Unidentified. Possibly contracts for foreign-language versions of
Animal Farm
.

2
.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
was used in the United Kingdom;
1984
in the USA.

3
.
The facsimile of the draft shows clearly that the novel was first set in 1980; then, as time passed in the writing of the book, 1982, and finally 1
984. This is particularly plain on page 23 of the facsimile, but the consequential changes occur at various points. It is arguable that, in setting the novel in, successively, 1980, 1982, and 1984, Orwell was projecting forward his own age, 36, when World War II started, from the time when he was planning or actually writing the novel. Thus, 1944 + 3
6 = 1980; 1946 + 36 = 1982; 1948 + 36 = 1
984. It is not, perhaps, a coincidence that in 1944, when the idea for the novel might reasonably be said to be taking shape, Richard was adopted. It would be natural for Orwell to wonder at that time (as many people did) what prospects there would be for war or peace when their children grew up. By choosing
Nineteen Eighty-Four
, Orwell set his novel in both present
and
future. Had Orwell only been writing about the present, there would have been no need for him to have advanced the year beyond 1980, and preserving the interval he did – of 36 years – must have had significance for him. Inverting the final digits of 1980 and
1982 would have been meaningless; the inversion of those for 1984 was probably coincidental.