George Orwell's remarkable international reputation is primarily due to his last two novels, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which have spoken to the Cold War consciousness with such force and intimacy that conceptions like Big Brother, "doublethink," and the apocalyptic date 1984 have become virtually mythic elements in our culture. Although Orwell became England's most prominent political writer during the 1940s, he was equally honored for his pragmatic, common-sensical habit of mind and for his uncompromising commitment to intellectual integrity. In fact, his career is a testimony to the enduring power of a moralist who tenaciously clings to the values of common decency, social justice, and respect for the individual. When Orwell died in January 1950, V.S. Pritchett eulogized him as a "saint" and as the "conscience of his generation."

Orwell was a complex, paradoxical figure who once described himself as a "Tory anarchist," a phrase which expressed his...