ORWELL GEORGE: (1903-1950) Orwell finds himself critically ill in hospital during the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four - ´ I´ d done about half my novel & shan´t touch it again till I´m well´´

ORWELL GEORGE: (1903-1950) Eric Arthur Blair. British novelist, essayist, journalist and literary critic. A rare A.L.S., George, four pages, 8vo, Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, 25th January 1948, to Anthony Powell (´Dear Tony´). Orwell thanks his correspondent for their letter and remarks ´It doesn´t matter about the saddle. We´re supposed to have one coming but if you do chance to run across another I´ll always buy it because it wouldn´t hurt to have two. The petrol situation is so calamitous that one has to use horses for certain purposes´, adding that he doesn´t think that a side saddle could be considered, although confessing ´I must say in the days when I used to ride I sometimes secretly thought I´d like to try a side saddle, because I believe it´s almost impossible to fall off´. Orwell continues to write of his health, ´I´ve been here 5 or 6 weeks & I think I´m getting better. I don´t feel nearly so death like & they say the X rays are beginning to show progress, though very slight´, and also of the impact it is had on his work, ´I´d done about half my novel & shan´t touch it again till I´m well, but I´m starting to do a v[er]y little light work, i.e. book reviews. I´ve just done one & feel I´ve broken a spell, as I hadn´t even contemplated working for 3 months. My handwriting is so bad because my right arm is half crippled. I´ve had trouble in it for some time & it´s probably of a tuberculosis nature, which it seems doesn´t matter much but is hellish painful for the time being. I´d like to do something for the TLS, but if I do it´ll have to be handwritten, because even if I had a typewriter here I can´t at present get my hand into that position. Did I tell you I was starting a uniform edition, as everyone seems to be doing, a sign of approcahing senility I think. I am starting off with one called "Coming Up for Air" which was published in 1939`. Orwell returns to his present health issues, explaining that the hospital is very nice and everyone is very good to him, reflecting ´I imagine I´ll be in bed for months yet, & even when I get out will have to go on being an out-patient, as the treatment lasts about 6 months. In that case I´ll have to stay in Glasgow & get down to London or up to Jura for a few days when I can´, and also writes of his adopted son, ´Of course I can´t see Richard till I´m non-infectious. He´s growing into a real tough. I´m going to have him examined for TB when my sister goes up to London shortly, but I can´t believe there is anything wrong with him´. A letter of good content and association. Some scattered light-brown drink stains, only very slightly affecting a few words of text (which remain perfectly legible) and not the signature. G

Anthony Powell (1905-2000) English novelist, best known for his 12-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-75). Powell, along with Malcolm Muggeridge, took reposnibility for organising Orwell´s funeral in 1950.

George Orwell had moved to a remote farmhouse on the Isle of Jura in May 1946 at which time he began intermittent work on his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The novelist returned to London towards the end of the year, picking up his literary journalism again, before venturing again to Jura in April 1947, when he resumed work on Nineteen Eighty-Four. During this time he was visited by his sister´s family and Orwell led a disastrous boating expedition which nearly led to loss of life and proved detrimental to the writer´s health. In December 1947 a chest specialist was summoned from Glasgow who pronounced that Orwell was seriously ill and a week before Christmas 1947 he was admitted to Hairmyres Hospital having been diagnosed with tuberculosis. By the end of July 1948 Orwell was able to return to Jura and by December he had finished the manuscript of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The critically acclaimed cautionary tale, Orwell´s ninth novel, was published in June 1949 and would be the final book completed in his lifetime.