...George Orwell is not only a major figure in twentieth -century literature but, more than fifty years after his death, he remains a best-selling author. Much of his work is still in print. In 1984 there were more than thirty new editions or reissues of his most famous novel, Nineteen Eighty Four, in at least sixteen languages.

From the early 1930s  until his death in January 1950 Orwell earned an income as a novelist, editor, essayist, journalist, reviewer and broadcaster. He wrote novels, essays, contemporary social history, reviews, and even poetry. Eric Blair's and, later, George Orwell's writing life ranged from unpublished letters to his mother from his Eastbourne boarding school in 1911, to his first publication in 1914- a stirring, poetic call to arms, 'Awake! Young Men of England', to essays anthologised and eulogised a thousand times, such as 'Politics and the English Language', 'Shooting an Elephant', and 'The Prevention of Literature', to his best-known works, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, the novel he completed as he was dying. His words have become part of the English language -'Newspeak'; 'Big Brother is watching you'; 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others'. In 1946 Orwell wrote that 'the English language is in a bad way', and that, 'Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible.' He offered a set of maxims on word use, though concluding, 'Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous'. Orwell cared passionately about his writing and taught himself to write well.