George Orwell's Real Name: Eric Arthur Blair

Quick answer: George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, born on June 25, 1903, in Motihari, in the Bengal Presidency of British India. He first used the name on his debut book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). He wrote Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and died of tuberculosis in London on January 21, 1950, at 46 (Britannica; The Orwell Foundation).

Real name and early life

Britannica states that Orwell was "born Eric Arthur Blair" and "never entirely abandoned his original name." The Library of Congress files his works under "Orwell, George, 1903-1950," with the cross-reference "Blair, Eric Arthur, 1903-1950." One LOC citation explains that George Orwell "was the pen name of an Englishman name Eric Blair; born in Bengal in 1903, and educated at Eton."

The Orwell Foundation's biography, written by Orwell biographer D.J. Taylor, says his father, Richard Walmesley Blair, was an opium agent in the Indian Civil Service. Like many children of the Raj, Eric was soon taken back to England and raised largely by his mother. He attended St Cyprian's preparatory school in Eastbourne, which he later recalled in the essay "Such, Such Were the Joys." He then won a King's Scholarship to Eton.

Instead of going to university, he joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma in 1922. Britannica says he grew ashamed of his role there and resigned after returning to England in 1927. He then lived among the poor in London and Paris, working at one point as a dishwasher, which gave him the material for his first book.

Career highlights

Down and Out in Paris and London appeared in 1933 under the name George Orwell. According to Taylor, the pen name "combined the name of the reigning monarch with a local river." Britannica identifies that river as the Orwell in East Anglia. Over time, Britannica notes, "few people but relatives knew his real name was Blair."

His novel Burmese Days (1934) drew on his police service. He fought in the Spanish Civil War and was seriously wounded by a sniper's bullet to the throat, an experience he recounted in Homage to Catalonia (1938). His fable Animal Farm (1945) satirized Soviet communism. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) gave the language "Big Brother" and "Orwellian."

Illness and death

The Orwell Foundation reports that after finishing the final version of Nineteen Eighty-Four at the end of 1948, he collapsed with advanced tuberculosis. He died at University College Hospital, London, on January 21, 1950, aged 46.

Name notes for searchers

George Orwell was a pen name, not a legal name change. He remained Eric Blair in private life, and his adopted son was named Richard Horatio Blair. Library catalogs cross-reference Eric Arthur Blair and many transliterations of Orwell.