Editing Coming Up for Air (section)

==Background==
As a child, Orwell lived at [[Shiplake]] and [[Henley-on-Thames|Henley]] in the Thames Valley. His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, was a civil servant in [[British India]], and he lived a genteel life with his mother and two sisters, though spending much of the year at boarding school at [[Eastbourne]] and later at [[Eton College|Eton]] in Britain. He particularly enjoyed fishing and shooting rabbits with a neighbouring family.<ref>[[Jacintha Buddicom]], ''[[Eric & Us]]'', Chatto & Windus 1974.</ref>

In 1937 Orwell spent some months fighting in the [[Spanish Civil War]]. He was [[Wounded in action|wounded]] in the throat in May 1937, by a [[Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War)|Nationalist]] sniper at [[Huesca]].<ref>{{cite book |year=1998 |editor1-last=Davison |editor1-first=Peter |editor1-link=Peter Davison (professor) |title=Facing Unpleasant Facts: 1937–1939 |series=The Complete Works of George Orwell, Volume 11 |location=London |publisher=Secker & Warburg |page=xxix |isbn=0436203774 }}</ref>

Orwell was severely ill in 1938 and was advised to spend the winter in a warm climate. The novelist [[Leo Myers|L. H. Myers]] anonymously gave £300 to enable this and Orwell went with his wife to North Africa where he stayed, in [[French Morocco]], mainly in [[Marrakesh]], from September 1938 to March 1939. (Orwell never learned the source of the money and he accepted it only on condition that it be considered a loan. He repaid the loan, eight years later, when he began making money from the success of ''[[Animal Farm]]''.)<ref>Michael Shelden, ''Orwell'', p. 324</ref> Orwell wrote ''Coming Up for Air'' while he was in North Africa<ref>''Coming Up for Air'', "A Note on the Text", [[Peter Davison (professor)|Peter Davison]], p. v. (Penguin Classics {{ISBN|978-0-14-118569-9}})</ref> and left the manuscript at his agent's office within a few hours of arriving back in England on 30 March 1939. It was submitted to [[Victor Gollancz]], who had an option on Orwell's next three novels, in spite of the  'cold treatment which [Orwell] had been given when ''[[Homage to Catalonia]]'' was rejected.' In fact Orwell heard in April 1939 that Gollancz had reservations about the book, and was delaying a decision to accept it. The descriptions in the novel of a character who lectures at a meeting of Gollancz's [[Left Book Club]], and of the meeting itself, were such that Gollancz 'could not have helped being offended by them.'<ref>Michael Shelden, Orwell, p. 336</ref> Nevertheless, the publisher did bring out the novel without demanding major changes and it was published on 12 June 1939. It was the last Orwell novel to bear the Gollancz imprint.