Lit

George Orwell was born in Motihari, Bengal, India, as the second child of

Richard Walmesley Blair and Ida Mabel Limonzin. His father was a civil servant

in the opium department and his mother was the daughter of a tea merchant in

Burma. In 1904 Orwell moved with his mother and sister to England, where he

attended Eton. His first writings Orwell published in college periodicals. During

these years Orwell developed his antipathy towards the English class systems.

Also Orwell's years at St Cyprian's Preparatory School in Easbourne were not

happy. His bitter, barely disguised attack on St. Cyprian's, SUCH, SUCH WERE

THE JOYS, was not published until 1968 for fear of libel action. Orwell opposed

a war with Germany, but he condemned fascism. During World War II he served

as a sergeant in the Home Guard and worked as a journalist for the BBC,

Observer and Tribune, where he was literary editor from 1943 to 1945. Toward

the end of the war, he wrote Animal Farm, which depicted the betrayal of a

revolution. After the war, Orwell went to Germany as a reporter, but in his

dispatches he sent to The Observer and The Manchester Evening News he did not

mention the extermination camps or