Although I prefer Animal Farm, Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece is undoubtedly influential and enduring. It’s interesting to read how he preferred to finish his final book, alone, than to take care of his weakening health, thereby bringing him to a premature death at age 46. From The Guardian:

It was a desperate race against time. Orwell’s health was deteriorating, the “unbelievably bad” manuscript needed retyping, and the December deadline was looming. [His editor] Warburg promised to help, and so did Orwell’s agent. At cross-purposes over possible typists, they somehow contrived to make a bad situation infinitely worse. Orwell, feeling beyond help, followed his ex-public schoolboy’s instincts: he would go it alone.

By mid-November, too weak to walk, he retired to bed to tackle “the grisly job” of typing the book on his “decrepit typewriter” by himself. Sustained by endless roll-ups, pots of coffee, strong tea and the warmth of his paraffin heater, with gales buffeting Barnhill [the cabin he wrote the book in], night and day, he struggled on. By 30 November 1948 it was virtually done.

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Tags:   1984 · george orwell · literatureNo Comments