Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India and was schooled at Eton. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, which provided inspriation for his first novel, Burmese Days. He went on to become a journalist, working for the BBC, Tribune, the Observer and the Manchester Evening News. He is best known for his two novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame. He died in 1950.
It is the book for everyone and Everyman, its brightness undimmed after fifty years Ruth Rendell 'Animal Farm is a timeless satire on the central tragi-comedy of all politics-that is, the tragi-comedy of corruption by power' Timothy Garton Ash Animal Farm has seen off all the opposition. It's as valid today as it was fifty years ago Ralph Steadman Remains our great satire of the darker face of modern history Malcolm Bradbury