Essay Database

Eric Arthur Blair (later George Orwell) was born in a small village near the border of Nepal. At that time India was part of the British Empire, and Blair's father, Richard, held a post as an agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Cicil Service. His mother, Ida Mabel Blair, was about eighteen years younger than his father. His family was described by some as being "lower-upper-middle-class." They owned no land or any extensive …

…account by George Orwell of his experience as a volunteer for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, published in 1938. Unlike other foreign intellectual leftists, Orwell and his wife did not join the International Brigade, but instead enlisted in the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista; POUM). The book chronicles both his observations of the drudgery of the daily life of a soldier and his disillusionment with political infighting and totalitarianism.