On 14 February (St Valentine’s Day), Jacintha Buddicom, having discovered that her childhood playmate, Eric Blair, was George Orwell, wrote to him, to his delight. At the end of March Celia Kirwan came to see him on behalf of the Information Research Department which had been set up by the Labour Government to try to counteract the Soviet’s ‘global and damaging campaign to undermine Western power and influence’. He did not feel strong enough to write for the IRD but suggested names of those who might do so and also those too ‘unreliable’ to be asked.
In September he was transferred to University College Hospital in London. He was probably past being cured but he was well cared for, and friends could drop in to see him. It was in this room that he married Sonia Brownell on 13 October. On 18 January 1950 he signed his Will on the eve of his proposed journey to Switzerland. Alas, before he could go, he died of a massive haemorrhage of the lungs in the early hours of Saturday, 21 January 1950.
Dr Bruce Dick* to David Astor*
5 January 1949
as from The Peel, Busby [south of Glasgow]
Dear Mr David,°
I am sorry for the delay in reply to your letter.
I was for a time in correspondence with Eric Blair. It was obvious° a relapse story, presumably of fairly acute onset. When we saw him in Sept. we thought he was as good as when he left us.
I had offered to take him into our hospital or this one. However he had a hankering for the less rigorous south. He had decided on Mundesley1 I expect the delay in getting fixed up made him decide on the Cotswold Sanatorium.2 I have not been in touch with the Superintendent personally, but one of my assistants sent a detailed history.
I believe the disease will respond again to a course of streptomycin. It can now be procured more easily at home. Certainly no other form of treatment is available.
It is all bad luck for such a fine character & gifted man. I know he gets great heart from your continued comradeship & kindness.
I hope the poor fellow will do well. It is now obvious that he will need to live a most sheltered life in a sanatorium environment. I fear the dream of Jura must fade out.
If I can be of the least help, I will. If he was to come north later we would give him refuge.
With kind regards.
Yours sincerely,
Bruce Dick
[XX, 3518, pp. 13–14; handwritten]
1.On the east coast of England about 20 to 22 miles northeast of Norwich. It is not known why he did not go there. Gwen O’Shaughnessy helped him find a place at Cranham.
2.Orwell was admitted to The Cotswold Sanatorium on 6 January 1949. Richard Rees drove Orwell on the first stage of the long journey from Barnhill to Cranham (George Orwell: Fugitive from the Camp of Victory, p. 150). He notes that at Barnhill, Orwell ‘was certainly happy. . . . He felt that he was at last putting down roots. But in reality it was obvious that he had chosen a too rocky soil’ (p. 149). Orwell completed his journey by train.
To David Astor*
12 January 1949
The Cotswold Sanatorium1
Cranham, Glos.
Dear David,
Thanks so much for your two wires & the offer about the streptomycin. But at present they aren’t treating me with strepto, & in any case it appears that it is now easier to get & comparatively cheap. They are giving me something called P.A.S.2 which I gather stands for para-amino-salicylic acid. This sounds rather as if it was just aspirin in disguise, but I assume it isn’t. We will give it a trial any way. If it doesn’t work I can always have another go of strepto. This seems quite a nice place & comfortable. If you can come any time I should love it, though of course don’t put yourself out. I can even arrange meals for you if I get notice. I have felt better the last week or so but I am not going to attempt any work for at least a month.
Yours
George
P.S. Looking at the map this isn’t so very far from your Abingdon place by road. I’ve never been in Glos. before but I think it must be rather like the Oxfordshire country I knew as a little boy.
[XX, 3520, pp. 15–16; handwritten]
1.Cranham was a private sanatorium 900 feet up in the Cotswold hills between Stroud and Gloucester with views across the Bristol Channel to the mountains of Wales. It is only a mile or two from Slad, described in Cider with Rosie (1959) by Laurie Lee. The patients were in individual chalets with central heating; rest, altitude and fresh, cold air were then believed to be appropriate treatments for tuberculosis (Crick, p. 553). The resident physicians were Geoffrey A. Hoffman BA, MB, TC, Dublin, and Margaret A. Kirkman, MB, BS, London. But see 18.1.49 to Fredric Warburg.
2.P.A.S. was a chemotherapeutic drug introduced in 1946 for the treatment of tuberculosis. It was only slightly effective used alone and was usually combined with isoniazid or streptomycin. Such a combination delayed the development of the disease. Shelden notes that these drugs were so new that no doctors ‘had enough experience with them to understand the best way to use them in treating advanced cases such as Orwell’s. He might have benefited from smaller doses or from a combination of drugs and other forms of treatment. Unfortunately, the most potent drug—isoniazid—was not developed for use in tuberculosis cases until 1952. . . . But the fact that he was given PAS at the sanatorium in Cranham shows that he was receiving the latest treatment for the disease. The doctors there seem to have made every effort to achieve an improvement in his condition’ (pp. 466–7).
To Leonard Moore*
17 January 1949
The Cotswold Sanatorium
Cranham
Dear Moore,
I enclose the 6 contracts,1 duly signed. Thanks also for sending the copies of Burmese Days, & the magazine with that cartoon.
I am glad the new book is fixed up for the USA. I assume it does no harm for it to have a different title here & there.2 Warburg seems to prefer the title 1984, & I think I prefer it slightly myself. 3 But I think it would be better to write it Nineteen Eighty-four, but I expect to see Warburg shortly & I’ll talk to him about that. It’s possible that the American publishers will want to cut out the Appendix,4 which of course is not a usual thing to have in something purporting to be a novel, but I would like to retain it if possible.
The above address will, I am afraid, find me for the next 2 or 3 months. It is a nice place & I am quite comfortable. I am trying to do no work whatever, which I think is the wisest thing at the moment. So, with reference to your other letter, could you tell Harper’s Bazaar that I would have liked to do the article, but have been seriously ill & cannot undertake anything. I dare say in a month or so I shall be fit to begin working again, but for the moment I do not want to make any commitments.
Yours sincerely
Eric Blair
[XX, 3525, pp. 19–20; handwritten]
1.Unidentified. Possibly contracts for foreign-language versions of Animal Farm.
2.Nineteen Eighty-Four was used in the United Kingdom; 1984 in the USA.
3.The facsimile of the draft shows clearly that the novel was first set in 1980; then, as time passed in the writing of the book, 1982, and finally 1984. This is particularly plain on page 23 of the facsimile, but the consequential changes occur at various points. It is arguable that, in setting the novel in, successively, 1980, 1982, and 1984, Orwell was projecting forward his own age, 36, when World War II started, from the time when he was planning or actually writing the novel. Thus, 1944 + 36 = 1980; 1946 + 36 = 1982; 1948 + 36 = 1984. It is not, perhaps, a coincidence that in 1944, when the idea for the novel might reasonably be said to be taking shape, Richard was adopted. It would be natural for Orwell to wonder at that time (as many people did) what prospects there would be for war or peace when their children grew up. By choosing Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell set his novel in both present and future. Had Orwell only been writing about the present, there would have been no need for him to have advanced the year beyond 1980, and preserving the interval he did – of 36 years – must have had significance for him. Inverting th
e final digits of 1980 and 1982 would have been meaningless; the inversion of those for 1984 was probably coincidental.
4.The appendix, ‘The Principles of Newspeak’, was included in English and US editions.
To Sir Richard Rees*
18 January 1949
The Cotswold Sanatorium
Cranham
Dear Richard,
I hope you got home all right & were not too exhausted by all your journeyings on my behalf. I am well settled in here & quite comfortable. The ‘chalet’ isn’t as grim as I had feared—quite warm, with central heating & hot & cold water, & the food is quite good. My appetite has definitely improved. The Tawneys 1 came in & saw me, but now have left for London. Karl Schnetzler also came, & Warburg is coming on Friday. I’ll send back your book In Parenthesis2 when I can. I think it’s very good in a way, but it’s what I call mannered writing, a thing I don’t approve of. I haven’t heard from Barnhill yet, but trust Avril has got properly over her cold. I don’t know how the weather has been there, but here it has been as mild & sunny as early April, & the birds have even been trying to sing. My book has been accepted for the USA & they’ve also agreed to reprint a number of earlier ones on quite good terms, which is unusual in an American publisher. Actually I’m somewhat against this, as they’re sure to lose money on the reprints & this may sour them on later books.
They are giving me something called P.A.S., which I believe stands for para-amino-salicylic acid. They say it is good. It’s very expensive, though not so expensive as streptomycin. You take it by mouth, which I must say I prefer to those endless injections. I have been thinking things over, & have decided that even if I am reasonably well by the summer, I must from now on spend my winters within reach of a doctor—where, I don’t know yet, but possibly somewhere like Brighton. If, therefore, it is impossible for me to be at Barnhill in the winter, can we fix things somehow so that Bill is looked after during those months? I don’t in the least wish to sever my connection with Barnhill, because it is a marvellous place to be at, & in any case we have now sent down fairly respectable roots there, but I think it would be wiser to do as I first intended, when I took the place in 1946, & use it only for the summers. I must try & stay alive for 5–10 years, which involves having medical attention at hand when necessary, & in addition I am just a nuisance to everybody when I am ill, whereas in a more civilized place this doesn’t matter. In the summers no doubt I shall generally be well enough to potter about, provided that this present infection is got under. In more reasonable times we might arrange to live every winter in Sicily or somewhere, but nowadays I suppose it will have to be somewhere in England.3 In the beginning we took the house on the understanding that we should only stay there April–November, but now there is Bill. It is a question of finding a housekeeper for him. Have you got any ideas about this? I’ll also write to Avril setting forth the problem.
Gleb Struve sent me a translation of some remarks about me in a Russian magazine.4 They’re really very annoying, but disquieting in a way because the whole thing is somehow so illiterate.
Yours
Eric
[XX, 3529, pp. 22–4; handwritten]
1.Professor R. H. Tawney (1888–1962), historian, author of Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926), joint editor of Economic History Review, 1926–33, and of Studies in Economic and Social History from 1934. He and his wife were very old friends of Richard Rees, who had asked them to visit Orwell at Cranham, as they were on holiday nearby at their country home.
2.In Parenthesis (1937) by David Jones (1895–1974), poet, novelist, and artist. It combines free verse with an account of his World War I experience. It won the Hawthornden Prize.
3.Travel abroad was made difficult because the government limited severely the amount of money that could be taken out of the country.
4.With his letter to Orwell of 1 January 1949, Gleb Struve had enclosed two articles by Ivan Anisimov attacking Arthur Koestler and Orwell, ‘typical of the literary xenophobia now raging in the Soviet Union’.
To Fredric Warburg*
18 January 1949
Telegram
LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU FRIDAY DO BRING PAMELA CAR WILL MEET YOU
GEORGE
[XX, 3530, p. 24]
The visit was arranged for Friday, 21 January 1949. Warburg went with his wife, Pamela, and in All Authors are Equal (1973) he gives a vivid account of Cranham (which horrified them) and of Orwell’s distressing state. Warburg, confirming the visit in a letter to Orwell of 19 January, asked his permission to have a frank discussion with his doctors: ‘Your future is important to more people than yourself.’ In reply to their questions, Orwell told Pamela Warburg that ‘a woman doctor [presumably Margaret Kirkman] visits me every morning. . . . I think she’s thoroughly competent and kind, and asks me how I feel and all that.’ However, in response to Mrs Warburg’s questions, it transpired that no chest examination by stethoscope had taken place. ‘I expect they’re understaffed here, you know,’ Orwell told her, ‘she probably hasn’t got time,’ to which Mrs Warburg angrily replied: ‘It’s monstrous, absolutely shocking’ (p. 109). Nevertheless, Orwell thought the doctors knew what they were doing, and Warburg remarks, ‘The reply was so typical of him—he couldn’t bear to make a fuss—and so heartrending that I could hardly believe my ears, but at least it made it easy for Pamela to beg him to see a London specialist.’ She persuaded Orwell to promise to let them know if he would like Dr Andrew Morland (a leading specialist in the field who had treated D. H. Lawrence) to see him and, if necessary, to get him into University College Hospital, London. Warburg also recounts how at this time, Louis Simmonds, a bookseller with whom Orwell dealt and who was a warm admirer of Orwell, told Warburg that he and one or two friends would raise £500—a very large sum in those days—to enable Orwell to go to Switzerland for treatment because ‘he is far too precious to lose’ (pp. 107–9).
To Julian Symons*
2 February 1949
The Cotswold Sanatorium
Cranham
Dear Julian,
I wonder how you & family are getting on. I have been in this place about a month. [Progress of his treatment – P.A.S.] During the last month my weight has only increased 4 ounces, but actually I do feel better & I am well looked after here, though the doctors don’t strike me as very brilliant.
Your baby must be getting quite a size & must be cutting teeth & eating solid food. I wonder if you had the battle over weaning that we had with Richard. It’s like Machiavelli says about government, you can’t do it except by force or fraud. Richard is getting [on] for 5 now & is enormous & very healthy, though still not interested in learning his letters. He likes to be read to, but doesn’t see that as a reason for learning to read himself. I suppose this coming winter he will have to start going to school, which he is certain to enjoy as he is very gregarious.
My new book is supposed to come out in July (Warburg said May or June, which means July in publisher’s language) but maybe the American edition will be out first. Any way I’ll see you get a copy. I must thank you for some friendly references in the M[anchester] E[vening] News, including one to that ghastly book of pamphlets in which I reluctantly collaborated. I am having another try to get Warburg to reprint some of Gissing’s books, to which I would write introductions. They reprinted (I forget which publishers) those 3 last year, but of course the wrong ones.1 Meanwhile I am still trying to get hold of a copy of New Grub Street, & am now trying in New York. Somewhat to my annoyance that paper Politics & Letters got me to write an essay on Gissing & then died, & have never sent my article back or answered my queries about it, though it appears distinctly unlikely that the magazine will re-appear. What a calamity that we can’t find a way of financing one decent magazine in this country. I suppose it’s only a question of losing about £2000 a year. The Partisan Review have either increased their sales or got hold of some money from somewhere, as I notice they now pay one quite decently. For all those articles I did duri
ng the war for them I got only 10 dollars a time.2
I don’t know this part of the country but it’s supposed to be a beauty spot. Professor Tawney lives nearby, but unfortunately he’s had to go back to London as the L.S.E. term had started. The weather is quite incredible, bright sunshine & birds singing as though it were April. Please remember me to your wife & excuse this bad handwriting.
Yours
George
[XX, 3538, pp. 31–2; handwritten]
1.In the Year of the Jubilee and The Whirlpool were published by Watergate Classics; the former had an introduction by William Plomer, and the latter, one by Myfanwy Evans.
2.Ten dollars was then approximately £2.50.
To Sir Richard Rees*
4 February 1949
The Cotswold Sanatorium
Cranham
Dear Richard,
I enclose cheque for what I owed you. You will notice I have added £3. Do you think you could be kind enough to get your wine merchant to send me 2 bottles of rum, which I suppose will come to about that. I assume he will know how to pack them so as not to get them broken.
I have heard from Avril who says she and Bill both think it would be better to move to a farm on the mainland. I think they are right, but can’t help feelingbad about it as I feel my health is the precipitating factor, though the state of the road is a good second. I think you would be rash to sink more money in any non-removable improvements etc.,1 because such a place might of its nature become untenable at some time. I trust it will be possible to move without selling off the stock and losing on the transaction. I am afraid the actual move will be a godawful° business from which I shall probably absent myself whenever it happens. I have asked Avril to tell Robin [Fletcher] that unless he happens on a tenant who would actually farm the place, I would like to keep on the lease of the house. I don’t see why we shouldn’t have it as a summer holiday place, and one could leave camp beds etc. there. Of course I may never be strong enough for that kind of thing again even in the summer, but others may be and the rent is next to nothing.
George Orwell: A Life in Letters Page 55