Byte Sized Biographies… George Orwell, Literary Visionary (Part Two)
The creator of Animal Farm and 1984 lived a life as original and strange as the books themselves.
Wanting to escape the distractions of London, in September of 1945, Orwell first travelled to Jura, a remote island in the Southwest corner of Scotland. Once there he stumbled upon Barnhill, a remote and unoccupied farmhouse that he immediately leased from its owner.
Unreachable by car, without electricity or telephone, over eight miles from any inhabited village, daily life in this dwelling was challenging. But for Orwell, much like his rural existence at the Stores, the solitude and abundant wildlife and rugged beauty was the perfect antidote for the oppressive environment in London.
Orwell got word in August that Animal Farm had not only sold 50,000 copies in the US, but was also now a book-of-the-month club selection, generating an additional 400,000 in sales. In 1946, only Dr. Spock would sell more books.
Orwell was already up to other romantic intrigue. He had met a much younger and beautiful Sonia Brownell when she was an editor at Horizon. Never one for subtlety, he had already proposed to her previously, basically saying that even if she found him unappealing, he wasn’t going to live much longer.
As an infamous non-believer it was initially difficult to find a cemetery that would accept the writer’s remains until influential friends interceded and had him interred at All Saints Church, Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire. Strangely perverse, even to the end, Orwell had requested that he be buried in the nearest convenient cemetery according to the rites of the Church of England.