果冻影院

The letters reveal new details about Orwell鈥檚 life in the 1930s 鈥� including his overlapping romances, his love of ice skating, and his struggle to write and publish his first novels.

They also show that the two women, Brenda Salkeld and Eleanor Jaques, whom he met while staying with his parents in Southwold, Suffolk, had a profound importance in his life lasting long after his romances with them appeared to have ended. (They both turned down his marriage proposals 鈥� Eleanor married his friend, Dennis Collings, while Brenda stayed single.)

In a letter to Brenda in 1940, four years into his marriage with his first wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy, and as a German invasion appeared imminent, he wrote: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a pity 鈥� we never made love properly. We could have been so happy. If things are really collapsing I shall try and see you. Or perhaps you wouldn鈥檛 want to?鈥� Orwell also wrote to Brenda from his hospital bed (at University College Hospital), sending his last letter four months before his death in 1950, just as he was about to marry his second wife, Sonia Brownell.

Richard Blair, Orwell鈥檚 adopted son who purchased the letters privately from the descendants of the two women at a substantial cost, said: 鈥淛ust when we thought that there was nothing more to know about George Orwell, something startling turns up. I am so pleased to donate these precious letters to the Orwell Archive at 果冻影院 and to see them preserved together in a single place so they can be shared with all who wish to study George Orwell鈥檚 life and work.鈥�

Professor Stella Bruzzi, Dean of 果冻影院鈥檚 Faculty of Arts and Humanities, said: 鈥淭hese letters are highly significant, shedding new light on one of the 20^th century鈥檚 most celebrated writers. We are hugely grateful to Richard for his generosity in donating this prized collection of unique personal artefacts to the Orwell Archive at 果冻影院.鈥�

The bulk of the letters have not been publicly available before. Eighteen of the 21 letters to Eleanor were first discovered more than a decade ago in a shed, stored in an old brown envelope upon which Eleanor had written that the contents should be burned after her death. The 29 Brenda letters surfaced in 2018.

The letters were presented by Richard Blair to 果冻影院 on Friday, ahead of the Orwell Memorial Lecture, of which Mr Blair is the key sponsor. The Orwell Lecture, organised annually by the Orwell Foundation and hosted by 果冻影院, was delivered this year by the novelist Ian McEwan.听听

Orwell biographer D.J. Taylor, who helped to track down the letters, said: 鈥淭hey not only enable us to reconstruct far more of Orwell鈥檚 life in the early 1930s 鈥� a largely undocumented time in his career 鈥� than we have previously been able to, but they also show just how much these women meant to him. He could get neither of them out of his system, kept up with them throughout the 1940s and continued to write to them on intimate terms.

"The letters also show a different side to Orwell. He lived a compartmentalised life and these documents open up a new corner of it. I did not know that one of his great hobbies was ice skating, for instance. There are lovely little drawings in a few of the letters and in one of these doodles he shows himself trying and failing to ice skate backwards.

鈥淚n terms of improving our understanding of Orwell鈥檚 work, I have a strong suspicion that his letters to Eleanor reminiscing about their country walks at Southwold may have inspired similar passages describing Winston鈥檚 affair with Julia in Nineteen Eighty-Four.鈥�

The collection, which has been formally inscribed to the prestigious UNESCO Memory of the World International Register, features the first hand-written notes of some Orwell鈥檚 most famous words and phrases, such as 鈥淭wo Minutes Hate鈥�, 鈥淣ewspeak鈥�, and 鈥淲ar is Peace. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery鈥�.

Sarah Aitchison, Head of 果冻影院 Special Collections, said: 鈥淭he Orwell Archive has been based at 果冻影院 for more than 50 years. It is one of our most highly prized collections and an important resource for researchers. We are thrilled at the addition of these two wonderful caches of letters which change our understanding of the author, revealing a great deal about his activities and interests at the time he was writing his early books and trying to establish himself as a writer.鈥�

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Ian McEwan鈥檚 Orwell Memorial Lecture will soon be available to watch on The Orwell Foundation鈥檚 YouTube channel. The lecture is one of a growing number of initiatives promoting public and scholarly engagement with Orwell鈥檚 work which the Foundation has launched since its arrival at 果冻影院 in 2016, including a new Political Fiction Prize, and dramatised live readings of Orwell鈥檚 books.听

The Foundation, which organises the annual Orwell Prizes for political writing and Orwell Youth Prize, will launch a new Bloomsbury-based Orwell Festival of Political Writing, in partnership with the 果冻影院 Institute of Advanced Studies, in 2022.

Links

• The Orwell Archive at 果冻影院
• 果冻影院 Special Collections
• 果冻影院 Library Services
• Professor Stella Bruzzi鈥檚 academic profile
• 果冻影院 Arts & Humanities

Image

• From top: Sarah Aitchison, Head of 果冻影院 Special Collections, and Richard Blair at an event held at 果冻影院 to celebrate the donation. Credit: 果冻影院 / James Tye.听
• George Orwell with a writer friend, Samuel McKechnie, and Eleanor Jaques on a beach in Southwold in 1932. Courtesy of the estate of Dennis Collings.
• George Orwell writing in Morocco in 1938/9. Courtesy of 果冻影院 Special Collections and the Orwell Estate.
• Orwell letters and Orwell biographer D.J. Taylor with Sarah Aitchison and Richard Blair. Credit: 果冻影院 / James Tye.

Media contact

Mark Greaves

T: +44 (0)7990 675947

E: m.greaves [at] ucl.ac.uk