George Orwell: A Chronology by Peter Davison
1908 - Dec. 1921: Attends convent school in Henley (not, in all probability, an Anglican convent as has formerly been supposed but an Ursuline convent: see Gordon Bowker, George Orwell (2003); St Cyprian’s private preparatory school, Eastbourne (an experience he drew on when writing ‘Such, Such Were the Joys’); Wellington College, as a scholar, for one term, then as a King’s Scholar at Eton.
Dec 1921: The Blairs move to Southwold on the Suffolk coast.
Oct 1922 - Dec 1927: Serves in Indian Imperial Police in Burma. Resigns whilst on leave in autumn 1927.
Autumn 1927 and Spring 1928: Expeditions to the East of London to witness conditions of the poor and lives for a time as a tramp.
Spring 1928 - late 1929: Lives in Paris, at first quite well on his savings, but in the autumn of 1929 as a dishwasher. Has a number of essays published in minor French journals and tried unsuccessfully to get short stories published. Writes either one or two novels (he later gives both numbers) but destroys the manuscripts, to his later regret. These first professional essays deal with his principal later concerns: the poor, the exploitation of people brought about by Empire; literary criticism (John Galsworthy), censorship, and popular culture (‘A Farthing Newspaper’).
7-21 Mar 1929: Admitted to Hôpital Cochin, Paris, with ‘une grippe’, basis for ‘How the Poor Die’, probably first written late 1940 but eventually published in a revised form in Nov 1946.
1930-31: Using his parents’ home in Southwold as a base, he writes poems, essays (first for The Adelphi), at this time published under his given names, Eric Blair (or E.B.) and what would become Down and Out in Paris and London. In the autumn of 1931 picks hops in Kent, which provides material for an essay and a section of A Clergyman’s Daughter.
1932: Leonard Moore becomes his literary agent and, following the intervention of Mrs. Sinclair Fierz, successfully submits Down and Out in Paris and London to the publisher, Victor Gollancz. Orwell is persuaded to adopt a nom-de-plume (instead of writing either under his own name, Eric Blair, which he did not wish to do, or as ‘X’) and unwillingly accepts the title under which the book appeared instead of ‘The Confessions of a Dishwasher’ (a title he preferred because he would rather answer to ‘dishwasher’ than ‘down and out’ which he was only temporarily and from which he could - indeed, did - escape simply by asking for £5 or £10 from friends or relatives.
Apr 1932 - Jul 1933: Teaches at The Hawthornes, a private school for boys aged 10-16, Hayes, Middlesex. Writes and directs a school play, Charles II, Christmas 1932, an experience which, with the play now about Charles I, appears in A Clergyman’s Daughter. 9 Jan 1933: Down and Out in Paris and London published (and in Paris, 30 June 1933 and Prague May 1935).
Autumn - Christmas 1933: Teaches at Frays College, Uxbridge, Middlesex. Completes Burmese Days. Hospitalised with pneumonia and abandons teaching.
Jan - Oct 1933: Lives with his parents at Southwold and writes A Clergyman’s Daughter.
25 Oct 1934: Burmese Days published by Harper Brothers, New York. Is disappointed it does not provide him with a breakthrough as a novelist. Amended (or ‘garbled’ as Orwell would call it) to avoid fear of actions for libel or defamation, and published by Gollancz, 24 June 1935. Published in Paris, 1946; Milan and Budapest, 1948.
Oct 1934 - Jan 1936: Part-time assistant at Booklovers’ Corner, 1 South End Road, Hampstead. Provides material for an essay and a section of Keep the Aspidistra Flying.
11 Mar 1935: A Clergyman’s Daughter published by Gollancz; published by Harper Brothers, New York, 17 August 1936.
Jan - 30 Mar 1936: Completes Keep the Aspidistra Flying in January and then sets off to study conditions in the depressed areas of the North of England, leading to his The Road to Wigan Pier. The book was not commissioned by the Left Book Club, which had not then been founded: its first advertisement appeared on 29 February 1936 and its first two books were published on 18 May 1936. It is uncertain whether Gollancz even formally commissioned the book. As late as October 1936 Gollancz asked Leonard Moore what Orwell was up to, ‘rather than demanding delivery of a commissioned manuscript’ (see D.J. Taylor, Orwell: The Life, 2003, p. 175). For details of financial background to Orwell, Gollancz, and The Road to Wigan Pier, see Complete Works, Vol. X, pp. 529-32.
2 Apr 1936: Moves to The Stores, Wallington, Hertfordshire, where he opens a small shop, tends his allotment, keeps a goat (Muriel - see Animal Farm) and chickens. The rent was 7s 6d per week (37½p - perhaps £13.50 at current values). At the time of writing, the house, much done up and with a blue plaque indicating that Orwell lived and wrote there, is on sale for £395,000.
20 Apr 1936: Keep the Aspidistra Flying published by Gollancz; published by Harcourt, Brace, New York, December 1955.
9 Jun 1936: Marries Eileen O’Shaughnessy in Wallington Parish Church.
15 Dec 1936: Delivers ms. of The Road to Wigan Pier to Gollancz. At the latter’s office, the architect, Clough Williams Ellis (e.g. of Portmeirion) happened to be present and suggested that the book be illustrated. At this stage only a normal, hard-back trade edition was envisaged. Early in 1937 it was decided to make it also a Left Book Club publication.
Christmas, 1936: Leaves to fight for the Republicans in Spanish Civil War and arrives in Barcelona at the very end of 1936. Serves in the Independent Labour Party contingent with the POUM militia on the Aragón front from January to June 1937. Witnesses and becomes involved in the Communist suppression of revolutionary parties (including the POUM) in May in Barcelona where his wife, Eileen, was working for the POUM. Returns to the front and is wounded in the throat by a Fascist sniper at Huesca. On 23 June he and Eileen escape with colleagues to France. On 13 June a document is presented to the Tribunal for Espionage and High Treason, Valencia, in which Orwell is described as a ‘confirmed Trotskyist’. Many of his Spanish colleagues were later executed or imprisoned.
First week of Jul 1937: returns with Eileen to Wallington and starts to write Homage to Catalonia, which he completes in mid January 1938.
18 Mar - 1 Sep 1938: Patient at Preston Hall Sanatorium, Aylesford, Kent with tubercular lesion in one lung.
25 Apr 1938: Homage to Catalonia (refused by Gollancz) published by Secker Warburg; published in Milan, Dec 1948 and by Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1952. Although Gollancz will publish Coming Up for Air and Inside the Whale, and he and Orwell will renew their friendship, Fredric Warburg will become Orwell’s publisher.
Jun 1938: Joins the Independent Labour Party, which he will leave after the outbreak of war because of its pacifist stance.
2 Sep - 26 Mar 1939: A benefactor unknown to Orwell (the novelist L.H. Myers) finances the Orwell's stay in Morocco (chiefly Marrakech) where it was wrongly thought the climate would benefit his condition. Orwell would later repay the loan through an intermediary. Writes Coming Up for Air.
11 Apr 1939: Returns to Wallington and writes Inside the Whale.
12 Jun 1939: Coming Up for Air published by Gollancz and by Harcourt, Brace, New York, January 1950.
11 Mar 1940: Inside the Whale and Other Essays (which includes ‘Charles Dickens’ and ‘Boys’ Weeklies’) published by Gollancz; published in Milan, 1949.
29 Mar 1940: First contribution to Tribune, beginning his long association with that journal.
May 1940: Joins Local Defence Volunteers (which becomes the Home Guard) in which he serves as a very active member with rank of Sergeant.
18 May 1940: First of 25 theatre reviews for Time Tide; his first of 27 film reviews appears on 5 October 1940.
Jun 1940: Eileen’s dearly beloved brother, Laurence, killed serving as Major in RAMC whilst treating soldiers on beaches at Dunkirk. She never fully recovers from this loss.
Aug - Oct 1940: Writes The Lion and the Unicorn.
3 Jan 1941: Writes first of fifteen ‘London Letters’ for Partisan Review.
19 Feb 1941: The Lion and the Unicorn published by Secker Warburg.
3 Mar 1941: Contributes two chapters, ‘Fascism and Democracy’ and ‘Patriots and Revolutionaries’ to Gollancz’s Betrayal of the Left.
May - Jun 1941: Gives series of four talks on literature in BBC Overseas Service.
18 Aug 1941 - 24 Nov 1943: Appointed Talks Assistant and later Talks Producer, Indian Section, BBC Eastern Service. He first works at 55 Portland Place, the location for Room 101 (which was not in Broadcasting House itself), the room where he attended the tedious Eastern Service committee meetings. 21 Nov 1941: Writes (and later broadcasts) first of over 200 newsletters for India, Malaya, and Indonesia for BBC. He also gives a considerable number of radio talks, six ‘magazine’ programmes on literature (which featured distinguished participants such as T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster), and wrote several radio plays.
23 Nov 1943: On leaving the BBC becomes Literary Editor of Tribune (until 16 Feb 1945). Resigns from Home Guard on medical grounds.
3 Dec 1943: First of eighty personal columns for Tribune, titled ‘As I Please’.
May 1944: Finishes The English People. It will not be published by Collins (with its text changed without reference to him) until August 1947. Published in Copenhagen, Feb 1948, and in Braunschweig, Dec 1948.
14 May 1944: Richard Horatio Blair adopted by the Orwells.
Summer 1944: Visits Jura for the first time and determines to live there for at least part of each year.
28 Jun 1944: The Orwells’ flat bombed. Moves to Canonbury Square, Islington, early Oct 1944.
15 Feb - end Mar 1945: War Correspondent in France, Germany, and Austria for The Observer and Manchester Evening News. His first article, ‘Paris Puts a Gay Face on her Miseries’, published by The Observer, 25 February 1945.
29 Mar 1945: Eileen Blair dies during an operation at Newcastle upon Tyne. Orwell, who was himself in hospital in Cologne, returns for her funeral and arranges for Richard to be cared for. He then returns to report from the Continent.
25 Jun 1945: Fredric Warburg reports that Orwell has written the first twelve pages of what would become Nineteen Eighty-Four.
17 Aug 1945: After many rejections, Animal Farm published by Secker Warburg. Published by Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1946 and becomes American Book of the Month Club selection (540,000 copies sold). By the time he died, it had been published in Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, German, Polish, Persian, Dutch, French, Italian, Gujarati, Ukrainian (with Orwell’s Introduction, Nov 1947, see CW, XIX, 86-9), Danish, Estonian, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Telugu, Indonesian, Icelandic, and Russian editions. Almost all removed or changed Orwell’s sub-title: ‘A Fairy Story’.
10-22 Sep 1945: Stays in fisherman’s cottage, Jura. Jan 1946: ‘The Prevention of Literature’ published in Polemic. 14 Feb 1946: Critical Essays published by Secker Warburg; as Dickens, Dali Others, Reynal Hitchcock, New York, 24 April 1946; as Ensayos Críticos, Buenos Aires, July 1948.
23 May - 13 Oct 1946: Rents Barnhill, Jura.
14 Jan 1947: Orwell’s adaptation for radio of Animal Farm broadcast by BBC.
11 Apr - 20 Dec 1947: Writing Nineteen Eighty-Four, Barnhill, Jura. Often ill.
31 May 1947: Sends Fredric Warburg ms. of 'Such, Such Were the Joys'; finally completed probably about May 1948.
Sep 1947: Gives up lease of The Stores, Wallington.
7 Oct 1947: First draft of Nineteen Eighty-Four completed despite his being very ill.
20 Dec 1947 - 28 Jul 1948: Patient in Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride, Glasgow, with tuberculosis of left lung.
May 1948: Starts second draft of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
13 May 1948: Coming Up for Air published as first volume in Secker Warburg’s Uniform Edition of Orwell’s books.
28 Jul - c. Jan 1949: At Barnhill, Jura.
Early Nov 1948: Finishes writing Nineteen Eighty-Four.
4 Dec 1948: Despite being seriously ill, having completed typing fair copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four (often sitting up in bed), posts copies to Leonard Moore and Fredric Warburg. Has serious relapse.
Dec 1948: Gives up lease of flat in Canonbury Square, Islington.
c. 2 Jan 1949: Leaves Jura, never to return.
6 Jan - 3 Sep 1949: Patient in Cotswold Sanatorium, Cranham, Gloucestershire, seriously ill with tuberculosis.
Jan 1949: Burmese Days published as second volume in Uniform Edition.
Mar 1949: Corrects proofs of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
9 Apr 1949: Despatches last completed review of Winston Churchill’s Their Finest Hour (for New Leader, New York).
8 Jun 1949: Nineteen Eighty-Four published by Secker Warburg (26,575 copies in his few remaining months of life); published by Harcourt, Brace, 13 Jun 1949 (two editions, each of 20,000 copies in his lifetime). American Book of the Month Club selection, July 1949 (about 190,000 copies). By the end of 1950 it had been published in Danish, Japanese, Swedish, German, Dutch, French, Norwegian, Finnish, Italian, and Hebrew.
3 Sep 1949: Transferred to University College Hospital, London.
13 Oct 1949: Marries Sonia Brownell.
18 Jan 1950: Signs his will on eve of proposed journey to Switzerland (to be financed by London booksellers), recommended for his health’s sake.
21 Jan 1950: Dies of pulmonary tuberculosis, aged 46.
26 Jan 1950: Buried as Eric Arthur Blair, All Saints, Sutton Courtney, Oxon., the arrangements having been made by David Astor, who had befriended him since they met towards the end of the war.
May 1950: Probate granted for Orwell’s estate, valued at £9,908 14s 11d, perhaps roughly equivalent to £250,000 in 2003, less than the cost of many a modern house.
