George Orwell: A Life in Letters (93 page)

October 1945
: ‘Notes on Nationalism’,
Polemic
.

8 October 1945
: Forces Educational Broadcast: ‘Jack London’, BBC Light Programme.

14 October 1945
: ‘Profile: Aneurin Bevan’; anon., chiefly by Orwell,
Observer
.

19 October 1945
: ‘You and the Atom Bomb’,
Tribune
.

26 October 1945
: ‘What is Science?’,
Tribune
.

November 1945
: ‘The British General Election’,
Commentary
.

2 November
1945
: ‘Good Bad Books’,
Tribune
.

9 November 1945
: ‘Revenge is Sour’,
Tribune.

23 November 1945
: ‘Through a Glass Rosily’,
Tribune.

14 December 1945
: ‘The Sporting Spirit’,
Tribune
.

15 December 1945
: ‘In Defence of English Cooking’,
Evening Standard.

21 December 1945
: ‘Nonsense Poetry’,
Tribune.

January 1946
: ‘The Prevention of Literature’,
Polemic.

4 January 1946
: ‘Freedom v. Happiness’ (review of Zamyatin’s
We
),
Tribune.

12 January 1946
: ‘A Nice Cup of Tea’,
Evening Standard
.

1
8 January 1946
: ‘The Politics of Starvation’,
Tribune
.

24, 31 January, 7, 14 February 1946
: Four related articles: ‘1
: The Intellectual Revolt’; ‘2. What is Socialism?’; ‘3. The Christian Reformers’; ‘4. Pacifism and Progress’,
Manchester Evening News
.

1 February 1946
: ‘The Cost of Radio Programmes’,
Tribune.

8 February 1946
: ‘Books v. Cigarettes’,
Tribune.

9 February 1946
: ‘The Moon under Water’ (the ideal pub),
Evening Standard.

14 February 1946
:
Critical Essays
published by Secker & Warburg (as
Dickens, Dali and Others: Studies in Popular Culture,
by Reynal & Hitchcock, New York, 29 April 1946).

15 February 1946
: ‘Decline of the English Murder’,
Tribune
.

8 March 1946
: ‘Do Our Colonies Pay?’,
Tribune.

29 March 1946
: Radio Play: ‘The Voyage of the
Beagle
’, BBC Home Service.

29 March 1946
: ‘British Cookery’, unpublished British Council booklet (XVIII, 2954 201–13).

April 1946
: ‘Politics and the English Language’,
Horizon.

12 April 1
946
: ‘Some Thoughts on the Common Toad’,
Tribune
.

26 April 1946
: ‘A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray’,
Tribune.

Mid-April 1946
: Gives up journalism for six months to concentrate on
Nineteen Eighty-Four.

May 1
946
: ‘Second Thoughts on James Burnham’,
Politics.

3 May 1946
: Death of Marjorie Dakin, Orwell’s elder sister.

3 May 1946
: ‘Confessions of a Book Reviewer’,
Tribune
.

Early May 1946
: Last ‘London Letter’,
Partisan Review
.

23 May–13 October 1946
: Rents Barnhill on Jura.

Summer 1946
: ‘Why I Write’,
Gangrel
.

9 July 1946
: Radio Play: ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, BBC
Children’s Hour
.

14 August 1
946
: ‘The True Pattern of H.G. Wells’,
Manchester Evening News
.

26 September 1946
: Has ‘only done about fifty pages [of
Nineteen Eighty-Four
]’.

September–October 1946
: ‘Politics vs. Literature’,
Polemic
.

14 October 1
946–10 April 1947
: At 27b Canonbury Square, London.

29 October 1946
: BBC Pamphlets No 2:
Books and Authors
(containing Orwell’s ‘Bernard Shaw’s
Arms and the Man
’) and No 3:
Landmarks in American Literature
(containing Orwell’s ‘Jack London’), published by Oxford University Press, Bombay.

November 1946
: Introduction to Jack London,
Love of Life and Other Stories
, Paul Elek.

November 1946
: ‘How the Poor Die’,
Now
.

22 November 1946
: ‘Riding Down from Bangor’ (review of
Helen’s Babies
),
Tribune.

January 1947
: ‘Arthur Koestler’,
Focus
(written September 1944).

14 January 1
947
: Radio play: Orwell’s adaptation of
Animal Farm
, BBC Third Programme.

March 1947
: ‘Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool’,
Polemic
.

4 April 1947
: 80th and last ‘As I Please’ column,
Tribune.
Orwell intended only to suspend his column.

11 April–20 December 1947
: At Barnhill, Jura, writing
Nineteen Eighty-Four
. Often ill.

31 May 1947
: Sends Warburg version of ‘Such, Such Were the Joys’; finalised about May 1948.

July/August 1947
: ‘Towards European Unity’,
Partisan Review
.

August 1947
:
The English People
published by Collins in the series
Britain in Pictures
.

September 1947
: Gives up lease of The Stores, Wallington.

31 October 1947
: So ill that he has to work in bed.

7 November 1947
: First draft of
Nineteen Eighty-Four
completed.

30 November 1947
: ‘Profile: Krishna Menon’ by David Astor, with Orwell,
Observer.

20 December–28 July 1948
: Patient in Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride, Glasgow, with TB.

March 1948
: Writes ‘Writers and Leviathan’ for
Politics and Letters
; when that fails it is published in
New Leader,
New York, 19 June 1948.

May 1948
: Starts second draft of
Nineteen Eighty-Four
.

Writes ‘Britain’s Left-Wing Press’ for
The Progressive.

Writes ‘George Gissing’ for
Politics and Letters
, published
London Magazine,
June 1960. About this time makes final amendments to typescript of ‘Such, Such Were the Joys’.

13 May 1948
:
Coming Up for Air
published as first volume of Secker’s Uniform Edition.

28 July 194
8–
c
. 2 January 1949
: At Barnhill, Jura.

28 August 1948
: ‘The Writer’s Dilemma’ (review of
The Writer and Politics
by George Woodcock),
Observer
.

Autumn 1948
: Writes ‘Reflections on Gandhi’, published in
Partisan Review
, June 1949.

October 1948
: ‘Britain’s Struggle for Survival: The Labour Government after Three Years’,
Commentary
.

Early November 1948
: Finishes writing
Nineteen Eighty-Four
and sets about typing manuscript.

15 November 1948
: Introduction to
British Pamphleteers
, vol. 1 (written spring
1947), Allan Wingate.

4 December 1948
: Completes typing fair copy of
Nineteen Eighty-Four
and posts typescript. Has serious relapse.

December 1948
: Gives up lease of his flat in Canonbury Square, Islington.

January
1949
:
Burmese Days
published as second volume of Secker’s Uniform Edition.

c
. 2 January 1949
: Leaves Jura for the last time.

6 January–3 September 194
9
: TB patient at Cotswold Sanatorium, Cranham, Glos.

Mid-February 1949
: Starts but does not complete article on Evelyn Waugh.

March 1949
: Corrects proofs of
Nineteen Eighty-Four
.

9 April 1949
: Sends off his last completed review – of Winston Churchill’s
Their Finest Hour
for
New Leader
, New York.

April 1949 onwards
: Plans novel set in 1945 (
not written
).

Writes synopsis and four pages of long short-story: ‘A Smoking-Room Story’.

Makes notes for an essay on Conrad.

May 1949
: ‘The Question of the [Ezra] Pound Award’,
Partisan Review.

8 June 1949
:
Nineteen Eighty-Four
published by Secker & Warburg.

8 June 1949
: Given the first
Partisan Review Annual Award
.

13 June 1949
:
1984
published by Harcourt, Brace, New York.

Post June 1949
: Signs second ‘Notes for my Literary Executor’.

July 1
949
:
1984
made American Book of the Month.

August 1949
: Plans a volume of reprinted essays.

3 September 1949
: Transferred to University College Hospital, London.

13 October 1949
: Marries Sonia Brownell in hospital by special licence.

18
January 1950
: Signs his Will on eve of his proposed journey to Switzerland which had been recommended for his health’s sake.

21 January 1950
: Orwell dies in University College Hospital following a massive haemorrhage of the lungs.

26 January 1950
: Orwell’s funeral held at Christ Church, Albany Street, London, NW1. Later that day he is buried at All Saints, Sutton Courtney, Berkshire.

A Short List of Further Reading

All Orwell’s writings – and, with their accompanying notes, they take up some 9
,000 pages – are to be found in
The Complete Works of George Orwell
, ed. Peter Davison, assisted by Ian Angus and Sheila Davison, 1998; second paperback edition, 2000–2. The books take up the first nine volumes and are published by Penguin with the same pagination of the texts.
The Facsimile of the Manuscript of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’
was published in 1984;
a supplementary volume
,
The Lost Orwell
, was published in 2006. Penguin Books have also published four collections of essays, edited by Peter Davison, which have notes additional to those in the
Complete Works
. These are:

Orwell in Spain
(includes
Homage to Catalonia
);
393 pages

Orwell’s England
(includes
The Road to Wigan Pier
); 432 pages with its 32 pages of plates

Orwell and the Dispossessed
(include
s Down and Out in Paris and London
); 424 pages

Orwell and Politics
(include
s Animal Farm
); 537 pages

Reference might also be made to the companion volume to
A Life in Letters: Orwell: Diaries,
Harvill Secker, 2009 (referred to as
Diaries
with page number).