Under the pseudonym George Orwell, Eric Arthur Blair has been established as one of the most prominent writers of the 1930s and 40s. His intelligent voice and satirical style, combined with his harsh criticisms and brilliant essays, led Orwell to become one of the most celebrated novelists and a true master at the craft of writing. Orwell's radical political ideals led him to write two of the most controversial satires of all time, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen-Eighty-Four (1949), in which he shows Soviet destruction through the eyes of animals and the destruction of language through oppression, respectively. These novels, as well as Orwell's turbulent life experiences, have allowed him to be one of the most influential voices of the twentieth century.

Born June 25th, 1903, Orwell was the child of Richard Blair, a minor official in the Opium department of the Civil Service in India, his mother was Ida Mabel...