Most people think of George Orwell as a prophetic, gloomy figure peering through wire-rimmed glasses at a terrifying future. They see the guy who gave us "Big Brother" and "Thought Police." But honestly, the real Eric Blair—that was his birth name, by the way—was a walking contradiction. He was an Eton-educated elitist who chose to live as a homeless person. He was a socialist who spent his final years snitching on communists to the British government. He was a man who loved high-level political theory but also wrote detailed essays about the "perfect" way to make a cup of tea.
If you’re looking for facts about George Orwell, you have to look past the school curriculum version of the man. He wasn't just a writer; he was a guy who survived a bullet through the neck, nearly died of tuberculosis while finishing his masterpiece, and once got himself arrested just to see what Christmas was like in jail.
He Wasn't Actually "George Orwell"
Let's get the first big fact out of the way. George Orwell didn't exist until 1933. Before that, he was Eric Arthur Blair. He picked the pseudonym right before his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London, was published. He was terrified that his family would be embarrassed by his accounts of living in poverty, washing dishes in "bug-infested" French hotels and sleeping in English "spikes" (homeless shelters).
He gave his publisher a list of four potential names: P.S. Burton, Kenneth Miles, George Orwell, and H. Lewis Allways. He chose George because it sounded solid and English, and Orwell because it was the name of a river in Suffolk he liked to visit. It’s kinda funny to think that one of the most famous names in literary history was basically a last-minute branding decision to avoid awkward conversations at Sunday dinner.
The Eton Rebel and the "Imperial Cop"
Orwell went to Eton, the most prestigious school in England. He was there on a scholarship. He was taught by Aldous Huxley—yes, the guy who wrote Brave New World. Imagine that classroom. But Orwell wasn't a great student. He was grumpy and rebellious. Instead of going to university like his peers, he moved to Burma (now Myanmar) to join the Indian Imperial Police.
This is where things get messy. He spent five years as a "cog in the wheel" of the British Empire. He hated it. He felt the "intolerable weight" of being an oppressor. In his essay "Shooting an Elephant," he describes the pressure of having to look tough in front of a crowd, eventually killing an animal he didn't want to kill just to avoid looking like a fool. That guilt stayed with him forever. It’s why he spent the next decade trying to "expiate" his sins by living among the poor and the marginalized.
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He Got Arrested on Purpose
Orwell had this obsession with seeing the world as it actually was, not as it appeared in books. In 1931, while he was researching the lives of the working class, he decided he wanted to know what it was like to spend Christmas in prison. He drank a massive amount of "black and tan" (beer and stout) and then topped it off with whiskey. He wanted to get arrested for "drunk and disorderly" behavior.
He used the name Edward Burton. He told the cops he was a poor tailor. It didn't work out the way he planned. Instead of a long stint behind bars, the magistrate just fined him six shillings and let him go. He was genuinely disappointed. He really wanted to see the inside of the system. That’s the kind of dedication—or maybe madness—that defined him.
The Bullet in the Neck
In 1936, Orwell went to Spain to fight in the Civil War. He didn't go as a journalist; he went as a soldier for the POUM (a Marxist militia). He wanted to kill fascists.
On May 20, 1937, a sniper’s bullet tore through his throat.
It was a miracle he survived. The bullet missed his main artery by about a millimeter. He lost his voice for a while, and for the rest of his life, he spoke with a thin, reedy rasp. This experience changed him. While he was recovering, he watched the Soviet-backed communists turn on his own militia group. He had to flee Spain under a false identity to avoid being purged by the very people he thought were on his side. This betrayal is exactly why Animal Farm and 1984 exist. He saw firsthand that "revolutionary" leaders could be just as murderous as the dictators they replaced.
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Animal Farm Was Rejected by Almost Everyone
It’s hard to believe now, but Animal Farm was a total flop at first. Publishers were terrified of it. It was 1944, and the Soviet Union was Britain’s ally against Hitler. Nobody wanted to publish a book that mocked Joseph Stalin as a pig named Napoleon.
T.S. Eliot, the famous poet who was then an editor at Faber & Faber, turned it down. He told Orwell the "Trotskyite" view wasn't convincing. Even the famous publisher Victor Gollancz, who had published Orwell’s earlier work, wouldn't touch it. It took a small publisher, Secker & Warburg, to take the risk. They only printed 4,500 copies. It became a massive hit almost overnight because, by the time it came out in 1945, the Cold War was starting and people were finally ready to hear the truth about Stalinism.
The Dying Man and the Island of Jura
Orwell wrote 1984 while he was literally dying. In 1947, he retreated to a remote farmhouse called Barnhill on the Scottish island of Jura. It was a bleak, windswept place. There was no electricity. No phone. He had to haul his own peat for the fire.
He was suffering from advanced tuberculosis. He was coughing up blood. He called the book "The Last Man in Europe" originally. He sat in bed, typing on a battered Remington typewriter, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes while his lungs were failing. He told his friends the book was a "mess" because he was so ill while writing it. He finished the manuscript in late 1948, sent it to his publisher, and was hospitalized shortly after. He died in January 1950, just seven months after the book was published. He never got to see how much it changed the world.
The Famous "Orwell's List"
Here is a fact about George Orwell that still riles people up today. In 1949, shortly before he died, he gave a list of names to the Information Research Department (IRD), a secret branch of the British Foreign Office.
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The list contained 38 names of writers and artists he suspected were "crypto-communists" or "fellow travelers" who shouldn't be hired for government propaganda work. It included Charlie Chaplin and George Bernard Shaw. To some, this was the ultimate betrayal—the man who wrote about the "Thought Police" was acting like a snitch. To others, he was just a dying man trying to protect his country from the totalitarianism he hated. It’s a complicated, messy part of his legacy that doesn't fit into a neat box.
He Had Some Truly Weird Habits
- The Tea Obsession: He wrote an entire essay called "A Nice Cup of Tea." He insisted tea should be strong, made in a teapot, and that you should always put the tea in before the milk. He considered people who put milk in first to be basically insane.
- The Goats: When he lived in Wallington in the 1930s, he ran a tiny general store. He kept a goat named Muriel (who later became a character in Animal Farm).
- The "Double Chin" Theory: He once claimed he could tell if someone was a "natural" conservative or a "natural" socialist just by the shape of their face and whether they had a double chin.
- Manual Labor: Even when he was a famous writer, he loved making things. He spent hours in his workshop making furniture, even though he was reportedly pretty terrible at it.
Why Orwell Matters in 2026
We use the word "Orwellian" all the time. Usually, we use it wrong. People use it to mean "something I don't like" or "government rules." But for Orwell, the real horror wasn't just the rules; it was the destruction of truth.
In 1984, the Party’s final command is to "reject the evidence of your eyes and ears." He was obsessed with the idea that if you can control language, you can control thought. If the word "freedom" is removed from the dictionary, can you even conceive of being free? That's the core of his work. He wasn't a psychic predicting the future; he was an observer describing what happens when people stop caring about objective facts.
How to Read Orwell Today
If you want to understand him, don't start with 1984. It’s too heavy. Start with his essays.
- Read "Politics and the English Language." It’s the best guide ever written on how to think clearly and avoid "pretentious diction."
- Look for "The Road to Wigan Pier." The first half is a brutal, vivid description of coal miners’ lives. The second half is Orwell ranting about why middle-class socialists are annoying. It’s hilarious and honest.
- Check out his diaries. They show a man who was constantly worried about his garden, his health, and the price of eggs. It humanizes the "legend."
George Orwell wasn't a saint. He was opinionated, sometimes hypocritical, and frequently grumpy. But he had a "power of facing unpleasant facts," which is a rare trait in any era. He lived a life that was as intense and tortured as the books he produced.
To really apply Orwell’s insights to your own life, start by auditing your own language. Stop using "zombie nouns" and passive voice to hide meaning. Speak plainly. Acknowledge when you’re wrong. Orwell’s greatest legacy isn't a set of political predictions, but a call to maintain personal integrity in a world that constantly asks you to lie for the sake of a tribe or a trend. Stick to the facts, even when they’re inconvenient—especially then.
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