Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: How did George Orwell die?
Orwell's health had continued to decline since the diagnosis of tuberculosis in December 1947. In mid-1949, he courted Sonia Brownell, and they announced their engagement in September, shortly before he was removed to University College Hospital in London. Sonia took charge of Orwell's affairs and attended him diligently in the hospital, causing concern to some old friends such as Muggeridge. In September 1949, Orwell invited his accountant Harrison to visit him in hospital, and Harrison claimed that Orwell then asked him to become director of GOP Ltd and to manage the company, but there was no independent witness.[110] Orwell's wedding took place in the hospital room on 13 October 1949, with David Astor as best man.[115] Orwell was in decline and visited by an assortment of visitors including Muggeridge, Connolly, Lucian Freud, Stephen Spender, Evelyn Waugh, Paul Potts, Anthony Powell, and his Eton tutor Anthony Gow.[9] Plans to go to the Swiss Alps were mooted. Further meetings were held with his accountant, at which Harrison and Mr and Mrs Blair were confirmed as directors of the company, and at which Harrison claimed that the "service agreement" was executed, giving copyright to the company.[110] Orwell's health was in decline again by Christmas. On the evening of 20 January 1950, Potts visited Orwell and slipped away on finding him asleep. Jack Harrison visited later and claimed that Orwell gave him 25% of the company.[110] Early on the morning of 21 January, an artery burst in Orwell's lungs, killing him at age 46.[116]
In summer 1946, Orwell decamped to Jura, an island to the west of Scotland. A boating accident did little for his health. In December 1947 he was in hospital in Glasgow. Tuberculosis was diagnosed and the request for permission to import streptomycin to treat Orwell went as far as Aneurin Bevan. After treatment, Orwell was able to return to Jura by the end of July 1948.
Why Orwell Matters, released in the UK as Orwell's Victory, is a book-length biographical essay by Christopher Hitchens. In it, the author relates George Orwell's thoughts on and actions in relation to:At the end of the book, Hitchens critiques Orwell's novels and legacy. An essay sequel to the book, "Why Orwell Still Matters," appears in John Rodden's 2007 compilation "The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell" ().
Orwell was not widely known for writing verse, but he did publish several poems that have survived, including many written during his school days:In October 2015 Finlay Publisher, for The Orwell Society, published "George Orwell: The Complete Poetry", compiled and presented by Dione Venables.
Orwell recounts a tale based on his experiences in a public funded hospital in Paris. The various reception procedures and treatments he receives for pneumonia include bureaucracy, a bath, cupping therapy and a mustard poultice. In the ward he notes the indifference of the staff to their patients, in particular when they are used as case studies for medical training. The death of "numero 57" sets Orwell wondering how lucky it is to die a natural death, or rather, as he thinks at the time of writing, and as he thought then, if is it better to die violently and not too old. Orwell sees his experiences in the French hospital, and in a Spanish hospital, in stark contrast to the care he received in an English cottage hospital.
George Orwell: A Life in Pictures is a 2003 BBC Television docudrama telling the life story of the British author George Orwell. Chris Langham plays the part of Orwell. No surviving sound recordings or video of the real George Orwell have been found.
The bibliography of George Orwell includes journalism, essays, novels and non-fiction books written by the British writer Eric Blair (1903–50), either under his own name or, more usually, under his pen name George Orwell. Orwell was a prolific writer on topics related to contemporary English society and literary criticism, whom the British newsweekly "The Economist" in 2008 declared "perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture." His non-fiction cultural and political criticism constitutes the majority of his work, but Orwell also wrote in several genres of fictional literature.
Animal Farm is a 1954 British-American animated comedy-drama film produced by Halas and Batchelor, based on the book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. It was the first British animated feature ("Water for Firefighting" and "Handling Ships", two feature length wartime training films, were produced earlier, but did not receive a formal cinema release). The US CIA paid for the filming, part of the American cultural offensive during the Cold War, and influenced how Orwell's ideas were to be presented. The CIA initially funded Louis de Rochemont to begin work on a film version of Orwell's work and he hired Halas & Batchelor, an animation firm in London that had made propaganda films for the British government.
Peter Davison's publication of the Complete Works of George Orwell, completed in 2000,[254] made most of the Orwell Archive accessible to the public. Jeffrey Meyers, a prolific American biographer, was first to take advantage of this and published a book in 2001[255] that investigated the darker side of Orwell and questioned his saintly image.[251] Why Orwell Matters (released in the United Kingdom as Orwell's Victory) was published by Christopher Hitchens in 2002.[256]
In 2001 Penguin published four selections from "The Complete Works of George Orwell" edited by Peter Davison in their modern classics series titled "Orwell and the Dispossessed: Down and Out in Paris and London in the Context of Essays, Reviews and Letters selected from The Complete Works of George Orwell" with an introduction by Peter Clarke, "Orwell's England: The Road to Wigan Pier in the Context of Essays, Reviews, Letters and Poems selected from The Complete Works of George Orwell" with an introduction by Ben Pimlott, "Orwell in Spain: The Full Text of Homage to Catalonia with Associated Articles, Reviews and Letters from The Complete Works of George Orwell" with an introduction by Christopher Hitchens, and "Orwell and Politics: Animal Farm in the Context of Essays, Reviews and Letters selected from The Complete Works of George Orwell" with an introduction by Timothy Garton Ash.
George Orwell's friends, as well as various Orwell experts, have noted that Brownell helped Orwell through the painful last months of his life and, according to Anthony Powell, cheered Orwell up greatly. However, others have argued that she may have also been attracted to him primarily because of his fame. Orwell biographer Bernard Crick did not think that Brownell "had much influence on his life" and asserted that "it was more or less an accident that they married." Other writers point out that Crick was notoriously ill-willed towards Sonia and is not objective when it comes to her important role.
Cooper met Eileen Blair (George Orwell's wife) during the war, and is thought to have used her as the basis for the character of Ann in "Black Bethlehem". In an account, printed in "Orwell Remembered", Cooper recalled that Eileen described how Orwell read each installment of "Animal Farm" to her each evening and she came in each morning to tell her co-workers how the book was developing.  Between 1947 and 1957 Cooper was fiction reviewer for the "Yorkshire Post".
Woodcock first came to know George Orwell after they had a public disagreement in the pages of the "Partisan Review". In his "London Letter" published in the March–April 1942 issue of the review, Orwell had written that in the context of a war against fascism, pacifism was "objectively pro-fascist". As the founder and editor of "Now", an "anti-war paper" which Orwell had mentioned in his article as an example of publications that published contributions by both pacificts and fascists, Woodcock took exception to this. Woodcock stated that "the review had abandoned its position as an independent forum", and was now "the cultural review of the British Anarchist movement". Despite this difference, the two became good friends and kept up a correspondence until Orwell's death, and "Now" would publish Orwell's article "How the Poor Die" in its November 6, 1946 issue.
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), Dalí fled from the fighting and refused to align himself with any group. He did the same during World War II (1939–1945), for which he was heavily criticized; George Orwell accused him of "scuttling off like a rat as soon as France is in danger" after Dalí had prospered in France during the pre-war years. "When the European War approaches he has one preoccupation only: how to find a place which has good cookery and from which he can make a quick bolt if danger comes too near", Orwell observed. In a notable 1944 review of Dalí's autobiography, Orwell wrote, "One ought to be able to hold in one's head simultaneously the two facts that Dalí is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being".
Orwell had requested to be buried in accordance with the Anglican rite in the graveyard of the closest church to wherever he happened to die. The graveyards in central London had no space, and fearing that he might have to be cremated against his wishes, his widow appealed to his friends to see whether any of them knew of a church with space in its graveyard.
Orwell's writings on the English language have had a large impact on classrooms, journalism and other writing. George Trail, in "Teaching Argument and the Rhetoric of Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language'", says that "A large part of Orwell's rhetorical approach consists of attempting at every opportunity to acquire reader participation, to involve the reader as an active and engaged consumer of the essay. Popular journalism is full of what may be the inheritance of Orwell's reader involvement devices". Haltom and Ostrom's work, "Teaching George Orwell in Karl Rove's World: 'Politics and the English Language' in the 21st Century Classroom", discusses how following of Orwell's six rules of English writing and speaking can have a place in the high school and university setting.
George Orwell also had a stay at the hospital for a bout of "La Grippe" in March of 1929. He describes it in his story "How the Poor Die".
"How the Poor Die" is an essay first published in 1946 in "Now" by the English author George Orwell. Orwell gives an anecdotal account of his experiences in a French public hospital which triggers a contemplation of hospital literature in the context of 19th-century medicine.
It is not known precisely when the article was written. Peter Davison, editor of Orwell's "Collected Works", has suggested a possible history for its composition that places its writing between 1931 and 1936 – a time when Orwell's work revolved around the unemployed, tramps and beggars – reworked it between summer 1940 and spring 1941, – submitted it to "Horizon" – but it was rejected – possibly because readers would have been unwilling to read about 'how the poor die' at such a time – and finally, a section retyped and then published in "Now", a magazine established by George Woodcock, in November 1946.
In October 2015 Finlay Publisher, for the Orwell Society, published George Orwell 'The Complete Poetry', compiled and presented by Dione Venables.[142]
"Pleasure Spots" is an essay published in 1946 by the English author George Orwell. The essay considers how pleasure resorts are likely to develop in the future, consisting of artificial environments with vacuous pleasures. Orwell argues that people need peace and to be able to appreciate nature.
In January 1949, in a very weak condition, Orwell was taken to a sanatorium in Gloucestershire, consisting of a series of small wooden chalets or huts near Stroud. Visitors were shocked by Orwell's appearance and concerned by the short-comings and ineffectiveness of the treatment. Late in the summer, Orwell was removed to University College Hospital in London. In October he married Sonia Brownell and she prepared plans to take him to the Swiss Alps. Orwell was getting weaker by the beginning of 1950. Sonia spent most of Friday 20 January with Orwell in his private ward but left in the early evening to have dinner with Lucian Freud and another friend. A visitor came and left a parcel outside the room where Orwell was lying alone. Sometime early on Saturday morning an artery burst in his lungs, and a few moments later he was dead, aged 46. Controversy surrounds Sonia's activities. Some say she was at a nightclub and inaccessible. Others claim that at the end of the evening having had dinner with her friends she called the hospital and came back distraught with the news of Orwell's death.
In 2014, a play written by playwright Joe Sutton titled Orwell in America was first performed by the Northern Stage theatre company in White River Junction, Vermont. It is a fictitious account of Orwell doing a book tour in the United States (something he never did in his lifetime). It moved to Off-Broadway in 2016.[146]
There is a description of cupping in George Orwell's essay "How the Poor Die", where he was surprised to find it practiced in a Paris hospital.
In December 1933, while Orwell was teaching in Uxbridge, he developed pneumonia. He was taken to a cottage hospital at Uxbridge where for a time his life was believed to be in danger. He was kept in hospital over Christmas and the New Year. When he was discharged in January 1934, he returned to Southwold to convalesce and was supported by his parents for several months. He did not return to teaching.