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Why did Eric Blair adopt a pen name? The answer is counter-intuitive. After writing his first book and while helping to get it ready for publication, it seems that he was not happy with his literary efforts and did not think much of his novel, and he therefore wanted to create some distance between himself and his book.
Incidentally, that first book was “Down and Out in Paris and London” (1933). Even when it came to the title of the book, Orwell had some quibbles, preferring “Confessions of a Dishwasher” or even “The Lady Poverty”. You have to be glad they dropped that last suggestion.
As for his pseudonym, instead of George Orwell, we might be knowing him as P. S. Burton or Kenneth Miles or H. Lewis Allways. One cannot help thinking that fate served him well in his ultimate choice of a pen name as well. Orwell is the name of a Suffolk river and makes for a much better adjective: Orwellian.
(Source: Averil Gardner, “George Orwell”)
Incidentally, that first book was “Down and Out in Paris and London” (1933). Even when it came to the title of the book, Orwell had some quibbles, preferring “Confessions of a Dishwasher” or even “The Lady Poverty”. You have to be glad they dropped that last suggestion.
As for his pseudonym, instead of George Orwell, we might be knowing him as P. S. Burton or Kenneth Miles or H. Lewis Allways. One cannot help thinking that fate served him well in his ultimate choice of a pen name as well. Orwell is the name of a Suffolk river and makes for a much better adjective: Orwellian.
(Source: Averil Gardner, “George Orwell”)
