The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.

Hello, he was born Eric Arthur Blair in 1903, the son of a British official working in the Indian Civil Service, and a French woman who was the daughter of an unsuccessful teak merchant in what was then called Burma. Their family was what Eric would later

call the landless gentry or lower middle class people who had greater claims on

social status than their income would allow.

Impavished snobbery is another way of putting it.

After the family returned to England, Eric went on a scholarship to a preparatory boarding

school on the Sussex coast, but it was another region of England. to a

preperatory boarding school on the Sussex coast, but it was another region of England, a river that runs from

Ipswich to the North Sea that inspired his famous pseudonym.

That river Orwell was called the River Orwell and the man Eric Arthur Blair became

George Orwell author whose famous works include essays like politics and the English language and shooting an elephant,

the allegorical novel Animal Farm from 1945, and of course the anti-utopian novel

warning the world of totalitarianism 1984.

Who was George Orwell? What makes him so great?

We'll be joined by Mike Palandrome for a celebration of this Titan of the 20th century.

Today on the history of literature. Okay. Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast everyone. I'm Jack Wilson, your host. George Orwell,

what a writer. He's kind of alone in literature.

There's no one quite like him, and that seems appropriate,

since much of his life seems to have been one of solitude.

There's a great picture of him with a baby, and he was married and he had friends and everything but his childhood was filled with loneliness.

He was often described as morose, withdrawn, eccentric, undeniably brilliant, but not necessarily a happy fellow.

He could be happy, he could write about simple pleasures, and I treasure that picture of him with that baby where he's genuinely happy.

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