ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism.

Detailed explanation-2: -George Orwell was the pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair. According to his biographer Bernard Crick, Orwell used a pseudonym ‘partly to avoid embarrassing his parents, partly as a hedge against failure, and partly because he disliked the name Eric, which reminded him of a prig in a Victorian boys’ story’.

Detailed explanation-3: -That Eric Blair felt it necessary to change his name to “George Orwell” for publication of his first book, “Down and Out in Paris and London, ” in 1933 is one of the more diagramatic facts of his life. At the time he was certain that the book was a failure (it had been rejected by two publishers including T. S.

Detailed explanation-4: -George Orwell’s last novel was published on 8 June, 1949. George Orwell’s 46th birthday was less than a month off when his last novel was published in London by Secker & Warburg, and five days afterwards by Harcourt Brace in New York.