Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Text, Sources, Criticism (Harbrace Sourcebooks)

George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903 in Motihari in Bengal, India and later studied at Eton College for four years. He was an assistant superintendent with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. He left that position after five years and moved to Paris, where he wrote his first two books: Burmese Days and Down and Out in Paris show more and London. He then moved to Spain to write but decided to join the United Workers Marxist Party Militia. After being decidedly opposed to communism, he served in the British Home Guard and with the Indian Service of the BBC during World War II. After the war, he wrote for the Observer and was literary editor for the Tribune. His best known works are Animal Farm and 1984. His other works include A Clergyman's Daughter, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, The Road to Wigan Pier, Homage to Catalonia, and Coming Up for Air. He died on January 21, 1950 at the age of 46. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Irving Howe was born in the Bronx, New York on June 11, 1920. He became a socialist at the age of 14. He graduated from City College in 1940. During World War II, he served in the Army. After the war, he began writing book reviews and essays for several magazines including Commentary, The Nation, and Partisan Review. For four years, he earned a show more living writing book reviews for Time magazine. He taught English at several colleges including Brandeis University, Stanford University, Hunter College, and City University, which he retired from in 1986. In 1954, he and a group of close friends founded the radical journal Dissent. He was the editor for nearly four decades. Also in the 1950's, he met a Yiddish poet named Eliezer Greenberg and the two began a long project to translate Yiddish prose and poetry into English, eventually publishing six collections of stories, essays, and poems. He wrote several books including Decline of the New, Politics and the Novel, and an autobiography entitled A Margin of Hope. World of Our Fathers won the National Book Award in 1976. He wrote critical studies of William Faulkner and Sherwood Anderson and a biography of Leon Trotsky. He died of cardiovascular disease on May 5, 1993 at the age of 72. (Bowker Author Biography) show less