Sixty-Five Years Since Orwell’s Death

The Rosenheim Building at UCLH

George Orwell passed away sixty-five years ago today. He died alone in his room on the fourth floor of UCLH’s Rosenheim Building (now demolished), where he was being treated for tuberculosis. Though he was in the late stages of the disease, he had been discussing the day before with Sonia, his wife of just a few days, how best to make the journey to Switzerland, where he hoped that a cure might be possible. How poignant then, that, having said goodnight to her and settled down for the night, he just slipped away after suffering a massive embolism as he slept. He died, though, with the satisfying knowledge that in Nineteen Eighty-Four he had finally produced a critically acclaimed work of such profound brilliance that it is increasingly cited as one of the most influential novels ever written in the English language.

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950)

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