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George Orwell’s son Richard Blair in conversation with D. J. Taylor (video)

Richard Blair, George Orwell’s adopted son, speaks in public for the first time about his father. Richard is in conversation with novelist and critic D. J. Taylor, Chair of the Orwell Trust and author of the Whitbread Biography Award-winning Orwell: The Life. Video from the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009:
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Victor Gollancz

Victor Gollancz

Sir Victor Gollancz (9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher, socialist, and humanitarian. Early life Born in Maida Vale, London, he was the son of a wholesale jeweller and nephew of Rabbi Professor Sir Hermann Gollancz and Professor Sir Israel Gollancz; after being educated at St Paul’s School, London and...
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Sonia Brownell

Sonia Brownell at Horizon (1948)

Sonia Mary Brownell (25 August 1918–11 December 1980) was the second and last wife of writer George Orwell, whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair. She was also known as Sonia Blair or Sonia Orwell. Brownell was born in Calcutta, as the daughter of a British colonial official. When she was six, she was...
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Eileen O’Shaughnessy Blair

Eileen O'Shaughnessy (left) at school

Eileen Maud O’Shaughnessy (25 September 1905 – 29 March 1945) was the first wife of British writer George Orwell. O’Shaughnessy was born in South Shields, County Durham, in the north-east of England, the only daughter of Marie O’Shaughnessy and Lawrence O’Shaughnessy, who was a customs collector. Despite being very close to her older brother Lawrence,...
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