person1903–1950

George Orwell

Disciplines:

Summary

British novelist and essayist — author of 1984 and Animal Farm — who created the modern political dystopia and wrote the most influential political essays in English — died at 46 leaving two books that are still the primary reference points for totalitarianism.

Core Contribution

Creates the modern political dystopia — 1984's apparatus (Big Brother, doublethink, Newspeak, Room 101, the Memory Hole) is the most complete vocabulary for totalitarianism in English; combined with Animal Farm's allegorical critique of Stalinism, Orwell's two late works are the most politically influential novels of the 20th century.

Key Spikes & Highlights

Worked as an Imperial Police officer in Burma before becoming a socialist — the experience of being part of an imperial power he intellectually opposed while depending on it for his living produced Shooting an Elephant and gave his anti-imperialism its peculiar authority; no other 20th century socialist critic had firsthand experience of being the oppressor
Rejected by T.S. Eliot (for Faber), Victor Gollancz, and Cape in the same year — Animal Farm was rejected by multiple British publishers during the war because it was anti-Soviet at a time when the Soviet Union was an ally; the publishers who read it understood exactly what it was saying and found it diplomatically inconvenient; the gap between literary merit and political timing is the largest in 20th century publishing history

Notable Works & Achievements

Down and Out in Paris and London

Burmese Days

The Road to Wigan Pier

Homage to Catalonia

Animal Farm

1984

Politics and the English Language

Historical Influences

Jonathan Swift H.G. Wells Arthur Koestler Spanish Civil War POUM experience

Intellectual Lineage

Motihari, Bengal Eton Imperial Police, Burma Down and Out in Paris and London Spanish Civil War 1984

Contemporaries & Peers

Arthur Koestler Evelyn Waugh T.S. Eliot

Minds Influenced

Political dystopia Political essay tradition

Intellectual Posterity

1984 Animal Farm Orwellian Big Brother Newspeak doublethink Thoughtcrime Politics and the English Language

Discussing

George Orwell

Ask anything about George Orwell — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.

person1903–1950

George Orwell

Disciplines:

Summary

Core Contribution

Key Spikes & Highlights

Worked as an Imperial Police officer in Burma before becoming a socialist — the experience of being part of an imperial power he intellectually opposed while depending on it for his living produced Shooting an Elephant and gave his anti-imperialism its peculiar authority; no other 20th century socialist critic had firsthand experience of being the oppressor
Rejected by T.S. Eliot (for Faber), Victor Gollancz, and Cape in the same year — Animal Farm was rejected by multiple British publishers during the war because it was anti-Soviet at a time when the Soviet Union was an ally; the publishers who read it understood exactly what it was saying and found it diplomatically inconvenient; the gap between literary merit and political timing is the largest in 20th century publishing history