The Crazy Real-Life Story Of 1984 Author George Orwell Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
By S. Flannagan/Jan. 11, 2021 3:08 pm EDT/Updated: Jan. 11, 2021 3:10 pm EDT
There s an old stereotype about novelists that they ll do anything to get new material. In the case of George Orwell, one of the most quoted (and misquoted) authors of the 20th century, this certainly rings true. In fact, the British author had what can only be described as an almost pathological necessity to accumulate experiences through which to understand the world anew.
Born into a moderately wealthy family as Eric Arthur Blair in India in 1903, according to Biography, his father worked in the Indian Civil Service, overseeing the cultivation of poppies and the production and export of opium to China on behalf of the British Empire, per the BBC. Orwell s mother, who returned to England with her son and his older sister when he was just a year old, was from a cash-poor aristocratic background. And