George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India. His family moved to England in 1907, and in 1917, Orwell was accepted into Eton College. From 1922 to 1927, he served as a member of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, which inspired his first novel, "Burmese Days" (1934). This was followed by many years of poverty and various jobs in Paris and London, experiences captured in "Down and Out in Paris and London" (1933). He fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Republicans and was wounded, experiences he describes in "Homage to Catalonia." In 1938, he was admitted to a sanatorium and never fully recovered. During World War II, he worked for the BBC's Eastern Service. His unparalleled political allegory "Animal Farm" (1945) made him world-famous, and his reputation peaked with the dark, dystopian "1984" (1949). He died in London in 1950.