Editing George Orwell (section)

==Literary career and legacy==
During most of his career, Orwell was best known for his journalism, in essays, reviews, columns in newspapers and magazines and in his books of reportage: ''[[Down and Out in Paris and London]]'' (describing a period of poverty in these cities), ''[[The Road to Wigan Pier]]'' (describing the living conditions of the poor in [[northern England]], and [[class division]] generally) and ''[[Homage to Catalonia]]''. According to [[Irving Howe]], Orwell was "the best English essayist since [[William Hazlitt|Hazlitt]], perhaps since [[Samuel Johnson|Dr Johnson]]".<ref name="Howe">{{Cite magazine|author-link=Irving Howe|title=George Orwell: 'As the bones know'|first=Irving|last=Howe|magazine=[[Harper's Magazine]]|date= January 1969}}(reprinted in ''[[Newsweek]]''). Howe considered Orwell "the finest journalist of his day and the foremost architect of the English essay since [[William Hazlitt|Hazlitt]]".</ref>

Modern readers are more often introduced to Orwell as a novelist, particularly through his enormously successful ''[[Animal Farm]]'' and ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''. The former is often thought to reflect degeneration in the Soviet Union after the [[Russian Revolution of 1917|Russian Revolution]] and the rise of [[Stalinism]]; the latter, life under [[totalitarianism|totalitarian rule]]. In 1984, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' and [[Ray Bradbury]]'s ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'' were honoured with the [[Prometheus Award]] for their contributions to dystopian literature. In 2011 he received it again for ''Animal Farm''. In 2003, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' was listed at number 8 and ''Animal Farm'' at number 46 on the BBC's [[The Big Read]] poll.<ref>{{cite news |title=BBC&nbsp;– The Big Read |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml |access-date=31 December 2021 |agency=BBC}}</ref> In 2021, readers of the [[The New York Times Book Review|''New York Times Book Review'']] rated ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' third in a list of "The best books of the past 125 years."<ref>{{Cite news|date=29 December 2021|title=What's the Best Book of the Past 125 Years? We Asked Readers to Decide.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/28/books/best-book-winners.html|access-date=31 December 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

===Literary influences===
In an autobiographical piece that Orwell sent to the editors of ''Twentieth Century Authors'' in 1940, he wrote: <blockquote>The writers I care about most and never grow tired of are: [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], [[Jonathan Swift|Swift]], [[Henry Fielding|Fielding]], [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]], [[Charles Reade]], [[Gustave Flaubert|Flaubert]] and, among modern writers, [[James Joyce]], [[T. S. Eliot]] and [[D. H. Lawrence]]. But I believe the modern writer who has influenced me most is [[W. Somerset Maugham]], whom I admire immensely for his power of telling a story straightforwardly and without frills.<ref>{{cite book |title=Writers: Their Lives and Works |date=2018 |publisher=Dorling Kindersley Ltd |page=245}}</ref></blockquote> Elsewhere, Orwell strongly praised the works of [[Jack London]], especially his book ''[[The Road (London book)|The Road]]''. Orwell's investigation of poverty in ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' strongly resembles that of Jack London's ''[[The People of the Abyss]]'', in which the American journalist disguises himself as an out-of-work sailor to investigate the lives of the poor in London. In his essay "Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" (1946) Orwell wrote: "If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' among them." On [[H. G. Wells]] he wrote, "The minds of all of us, and therefore the physical world, would be perceptibly different if Wells had never existed."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Sperber |first1=Murray A. |title=The Author as Cultural Hero: H. G. Wells and George Orwell |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24780682 |publisher=University of Manitoba |date=1981|jstor=24780682 }}</ref>

Orwell was an admirer of [[Arthur Koestler]] and became a close friend during the three years that Koestler and his wife Mamain spent at the cottage of Bwlch Ocyn in the [[Vale of Ffestiniog]]. Orwell reviewed Koestler's ''[[Darkness at Noon]]'' for the ''[[New Statesman]]'' in 1941, saying:
{{blockquote|
Brilliant as this book is as a novel, and a piece of brilliant literature, it is probably most valuable as an interpretation of the Moscow "confessions" by someone with an inner knowledge of totalitarian methods. What was frightening about these trials was not the fact that they happened—for obviously such things are necessary in a totalitarian society—but the eagerness of Western intellectuals to justify them.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.walesartsreview.org/to-the-detriment-of-us-all-the-untouched-legacy-of-arthur-koestler-and-george-orwell/|title=The Untouched Legacy of Arthur Koestler and George Orwell|date=24 February 2016|access-date=2 September 2017}}</ref>
}}

Other writers Orwell admired included [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]], [[George Gissing]], [[Graham Greene]], [[Herman Melville]], [[Henry Miller]], [[Tobias Smollett]], [[Mark Twain]], [[Joseph Conrad]], and [[Yevgeny Zamyatin]].<ref>''Letter to Gleb Struve, 17 February 1944'', Orwell: Essays, Journalism and Letters Vol 3, eds. Sonia Brownell and Ian Angus</ref> He was both an admirer and a critic of [[Rudyard Kipling]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Burmese_Days/english/e_mm_int |title=Malcolm Muggeridge: Introduction |access-date=23 December 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk/2939606.html |title=Does Orwell Matter? |access-date=23 December 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705141429/http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk/2939606.html |archive-date=5 July 2008 }}</ref> praising Kipling as a gifted writer and a "good bad poet" whose work is "spurious" and "morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting," but undeniably seductive and able to speak to certain aspects of reality more effectively than more enlightened authors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/kipling/english/e_rkip |title=George Orwell: Rudyard Kipling |access-date=23 December 2008}}</ref> He had a similarly ambivalent attitude to [[G. K. Chesterton]], whom he regarded as a writer of considerable talent who had chosen to devote himself to "Roman Catholic propaganda",<ref>''[[Notes on Nationalism]]''</ref> and to [[Evelyn Waugh]], who was, he wrote, "about as good a novelist as one can be (i.e. as novelists go today) while holding untenable opinions".<ref>''Orwell: Essays, Journalism and Letters'' Vol 4, eds. Sonia Brownell and Ian Angus, p. 576</ref>

===Literary critic===
Throughout his life Orwell continually supported himself as a book-reviewer. His reviews are well known and have had an influence on literary criticism. He wrote in the conclusion to his 1940 essay on [[Charles Dickens]],<ref>{{cite web |last1=Orwell |first1=George |title=Charles Dickens |url=http://www.george-orwell.org/Charles_Dickens/0.html |website=george-orwell.org |access-date=17 January 2019}}</ref>
{{blockquote|"When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page. It is not necessarily the actual face of the writer. I feel this very strongly with [[Jonathon Swift|Swift]], with [[Daniel Defoe|Defoe]], with [[Henry Fielding|Fielding]], [[Stendhal]], [[William Makepeace Thackeray|Thackeray]], [[Gustave Flaubert|Flaubert]], though in several cases I do not know what these people looked like and do not want to know. What one sees is the face that the writer ought to have. Well, in the case of Dickens I see a face that is not quite the face of Dickens's photographs, though it resembles it. It is the face of a man of about forty, with a small beard and a high colour. He is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry—in other words, of a nineteenth-century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls."}}

[[George Woodcock]] suggested that the last two sentences also describe Orwell.<ref>George Woodcock Introduction to Stephen Wadhams ''Remembering Orwell'' Penguin 1984</ref>

Orwell wrote a critique of [[George Bernard Shaw]]'s play ''[[Arms and the Man#Critical acclaim|Arms and the Man]]''. He considered this Shaw's best play and the most likely to remain socially relevant. His 1945 essay ''In Defence of P.G. Wodehouse'' argues that his broadcasts from Germany during the war did not really make him a traitor. He accused [[Ministry of Information (United Kingdom)|The Ministry of Information]] of exaggerating Wodehouse's actions for propaganda purposes.

=== Food writing ===
In 1946, the [[British Council]] commissioned Orwell to write an essay on British food as part of a drive to promote British relations abroad.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|agency=BBC|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47155257|title=Orwell gets apology for rejected food essay|date=7 February 2019|access-date=7 February 2019|language=en-GB}}</ref> In his essay titled "British Cookery", Orwell described the British diet as "a simple, rather heavy, perhaps slightly barbarous diet" and where "hot drinks are acceptable at most hours of the day".<ref name=":0"/> He wrote that [[Tea in the United Kingdom|high tea in the United Kingdom]] consisted of a variety of savoury and sweet dishes, but "no tea would be considered a good one if it did not include at least one kind of cake", before adding "as well as cakes, [[Biscuit#Confectionery biscuits|biscuit]]s are much eaten at tea-time".<ref name=":0"/><ref>{{cite news |title=British Cookery |url=https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/british-cookery/ |access-date=20 August 2021 |work=Orwell Foundation}}</ref> Orwell included his own recipe for [[marmalade]], a popular British spread on toast.<ref name=":0"/> However, the British Council declined to publish the essay on the grounds that it was too problematic to write about food at the time of [[Rationing in the United Kingdom|strict rationing in the UK]] following the war. In 2019, the essay was discovered in the British Council's archives along with the rejection letter. The British Council issued an official apology to Orwell over the rejection of the commissioned essay, publishing the original essay along with the rejection letter.<ref name=":0" />

===Reception and evaluations of Orwell's works===
[[File:The Playhouse 1984 London Cinema Marquee.jpg|thumb|right|Production of the play ''[[1984 (play)|1984]]'' at the [[Playhouse Theatre]] in the [[West End theatre|West End]]. Orwell's works have been adapted for stage, screen and television. They have also inspired commercials and songs, and he is often quoted. Historian John Rodden called him a "cultural icon".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rodden |first1=John |title=The Unexamined Orwell |date=2012 |publisher=University of Texas Press |page=4}}</ref>]]
Arthur Koestler said that Orwell's "uncompromising intellectual honesty made him appear almost inhuman at times".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.orwelltoday.com/orwellpersona.shtml|title=5.Orwell's Persona|website=orwelltoday.com}}</ref> [[Ben Wattenberg]] stated: "Orwell's writing pierced intellectual hypocrisy wherever he found it."<ref name="thinktank">{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript990.html|title=PBS: Think Tank: Transcript for 'Orwell's Century'|publisher=PBS|access-date=25 February 2015}}</ref> According to historian [[Piers Brendon]], "Orwell was the saint of common decency who would in earlier days, said his BBC boss [[Rushbrook Williams]], 'have been either canonised—or burnt at the stake{{'"}}.<ref>{{Cite news|newspaper=The Guardian |location=UK |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jun/07/biography.georgeorwell|title=The saint of common decency|first=Piers|last=Brendon|date=7 June 2003}}</ref> [[Raymond Williams]] in ''[[Politics and Letters: Interviews with New Left Review]]'' describes Orwell as a "successful impersonation of a plain man who bumps into experience in an unmediated way and tells the truth about it".<ref>Raymond Williams ''Politics and Letters'' 1979</ref> [[Christopher Norris (critic)|Christopher Norris]] declared that Orwell's "homespun empiricist outlook—his assumption that the truth was just there to be told in a straightforward common-sense way—now seems not merely naïve but culpably self-deluding".<ref>Christopher Norris ''Language, Truth and Ideology: Orwell and the Post War Left'' in ''Inside the Myth: Orwell views from the Left'' Lawrence and Whishart 1984</ref> The American scholar Scott Lucas has described Orwell as an enemy of the Left.<ref>Lucas, Scott (2003). ''Orwell''. Haus Publishing. {{ISBN|1904341330}}</ref> John Newsinger has argued that Lucas could only do this by portraying "all of Orwell's attacks on Stalinism [–] as if they were attacks on socialism, despite Orwell's continued insistence that they were not".<ref>{{cite web|author=O. Dag |url=http://orwell.ru/a_life/newsinger/english/e_oc |title=John Newsinger: Orwell Centenary: The Biographies |language=ru |publisher=Orwell.ru |access-date=14 May 2014}}</ref>

Orwell's work has taken a prominent place in the school literature curriculum in England,<ref>Rodden (1989: 394–395)</ref> with ''Animal Farm'' a regular examination topic at the end of secondary education ([[GCSE]]), and ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' a topic for subsequent examinations below university level ([[A Level]]s). A 2016 UK poll saw ''Animal Farm'' ranked the nation's favourite book from school.<ref>{{cite news |title=George Orwell's Animal Farm tops list of the nation's favourite books from school |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/george-orwells-animal-farm-tops-list-of-the-nations-favourite-books-from-school-a6994351.html |access-date=10 April 2020 |work=The Independent}}</ref>

The historian John Rodden stated: "[[John Podhoretz]] did claim that if Orwell were alive today, he'd be standing with the [[neo-conservatives]] and against the Left. And the question arises, to what extent can you even begin to predict the political positions of somebody who's been dead three decades and more by that time?"<ref name="thinktank"/>

Rodden notes the "undeniable conservative features in the Orwell physiognomy" and remarks on how "to some extent Orwell facilitated the kinds of uses and abuses by the Right that his name has been put to. In other ways there has been the politics of selective quotation."<ref name="thinktank"/> Rodden refers to the essay "[[Why I Write]]",<ref name=whyiwrite>{{Cite web |title=Why I Write |last=Orwell |first=George |website=The Orwell Foundation |publisher=Gangrel No. 4|date=Summer 1946 |url= https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/why-i-write/|quote=Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.}}</ref> in which Orwell refers to the Spanish Civil War as being his "watershed political experience", saying: "The Spanish War and other events in 1936–37, turned the scale. Thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written directly or indirectly ''against'' totalitarianism and ''for'' democratic socialism as I understand it." (emphasis in original)<ref name="thinktank"/> Rodden goes on to explain how, during the McCarthy era, the introduction to the Signet edition of ''Animal Farm'' makes use of selective quotation:
{{blockquote|
"[''Introduction'']: If the book itself, ''Animal Farm'', had left any doubt of the matter, Orwell dispelled it in his essay ''Why I Write'': 'Every line of serious work that I've written since 1936 has been written directly or indirectly against Totalitarianism&nbsp;....'<br />[''Rodden'']: dot, dot, dot, dot, the politics of ellipsis. 'For Democratic Socialism' is vaporized, just like Winston Smith did it at the Ministry of Truth, and that's very much what happened at the beginning of the McCarthy era and just continued, Orwell being selectively quoted."<ref name="thinktank"/>}}

Fyvel wrote about Orwell: <blockquote>His crucial experience&nbsp;[...] was his struggle to turn himself into a writer, one which led through long periods of poverty, failure and humiliation, and about which he has written almost nothing directly. The sweat and agony was less in the slum-life than in the effort to turn the experience into literature.<ref>Fyvel, T.R., "A Writer's Life", ''World Review'', June 1950</ref><ref>Fyvel, T.R., "A Case for George Orwell?", ''Twentieth Century'', September 1956, pp. 257–258</ref></blockquote>

Conversely, the historian [[Isaac Deutscher]] was far more critical of Orwell from a [[Marxist]] perspective and characterised him as a "simple minded [[anarchist]]". Deutscher argued that Orwell had struggled to comprehend the dialectical philosophy of Marxism, demonstrated personal ambivalence towards [[Anti-Stalinist Left|other strands of socialism]] and his works such as ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' had been appropriated for the purpose of [[anti-communist]] [[Cold War]] propaganda.<ref>{{cite web |title=1984 - The Mysticism of Cruelty, by Isaac Deutscher 1955 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1955/1984.htm |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Newsinger |first1=J. |title=Orwell's Politics |date=17 January 1999 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-333-98360-7 |page=123 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rURaCwAAQBAJ&dq=deutscher+orwell&pg=PA123 |language=en}}</ref>

===Influence on language and writing===
In his essay "[[Politics and the English Language]]" (1946), Orwell wrote about the importance of precise and clear language, arguing that vague writing can be used as a powerful tool of political manipulation. In that essay, Orwell provides six rules for writers:
{{blockquote|
# Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
# Never use a long word where a short one will do.
# If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
# Never use the passive where you can use the active.
# Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
# Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm|first = George |last = Orwell |title = Politics and the English Language |date = April 1946 |publisher = [[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]] |work = mtholyoke.edu |access-date = 15 July 2010|url-status = dead|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100715144246/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm |archive-date = 15 July 2010 |df = dmy}}</ref>}}

Orwell worked as a journalist at ''[[The Observer]]'' for seven years, and its editor [[David Astor]] gave a copy of this celebrated essay to every new recruit.<ref name="Good journalism"/> In 2003, the literary editor at the newspaper [[Robert McCrum]] wrote, "Even now, it is quoted in our style book".<ref name="Good journalism">{{cite news |title=George Orwell and the eternal truths of good journalism |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/09/georgeorwell |access-date=17 July 2021 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref> The journalist [[Jonathan Heawood]] noted: "Orwell's criticism of slovenly language is still taken very seriously."<ref name="Good journalism"/>

Andrew N. Rubin argues that "Orwell claimed that we should be attentive to how the use of language has limited our capacity for critical thought just as we should be equally concerned with the ways in which dominant modes of thinking have reshaped the very language that we use."<ref>{{cite web|last=Rubin|first=Andrew N|url=http://outsidethewhale.com/2011/10/04/70/|title=The Rhetoric of Perpetual War|access-date=11 October 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120123221507/http://outsidethewhale.com/2011/10/04/70/|archive-date=23 January 2012}}</ref>

The adjective "[[Orwellian]]" connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth and manipulation of the past. In ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', Orwell described a totalitarian government that controlled thought by controlling language, making certain ideas literally unthinkable. Several words and phrases from ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' have entered popular language. "[[Newspeak]]" is a simplified and obfuscatory language designed to make independent thought impossible. "[[Doublethink]]" means holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. The "[[Thought Police]]" are those who suppress all dissenting opinion. "[[Prolefeed]]" is homogenised, manufactured superficial literature, film and music used to control and indoctrinate the populace through docility. "[[Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)|Big Brother]]" is a supreme dictator who watches everyone. Other [[neologism]]s from the novel include, "[[Two Minutes Hate]]", "[[Room 101]]", "[[memory hole]]", "[[wikt:unperson|unperson]]", and "[[thoughtcrime]]",<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> as well as providing direct inspiration for the neologism "[[groupthink]]".

Orwell may have been the first to use the term "[[cold war (general term)|cold war]]" in his essay, "You and the Atom Bomb", published in ''Tribune'' on 19 October 1945. He wrote:
{{blockquote|"We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. [[James Burnham]]'s theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications—this is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a State which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of 'cold war' with its neighbours."<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://orwell.ru/library/articles/ABomb/english/e_abomb.html
|first=George|last=Orwell
|title=You and the Atom Bomb
|publisher=[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]
|date=19 October 1945
|access-date=15 July 2010
}}</ref>}}

In 1965 the Marxist cultural studies critic [[Raymond Williams]] (the author of ''[[Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society|Keywords]]'') considered Orwell's concept of freedom and his writings in a review of books by [[Christopher Caudwell]], who unlike Orwell (the better known writer) did not survive the Spanish Civil War. Williams cautions the reader "not to rest in Orwell" for "he engages too easily with our intellectual and emotional habits... can reinforce a prejudice, delay recognition of a muddle, betray us emotionally at a point of new growth..."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Williams |first=Raymond |date=18 February 1965 |title=A young man's papers |work=Manchester Guardian}}</ref>

===Modern culture===
[[File:Society Publications.jpg|thumb|upright|Selection of publications by [[the Orwell Society]]]]
The [[The Orwell Society|Orwell Society]] was formed in 2011 to promote understanding of the life and work of Orwell. A registered UK charity, it was founded and inaugurated by [[Dione Venables]] at [[Phyllis Court]] members club in [[Henley-on-Thames]], Oxfordshire, a club that was often visited by Orwell in his youth.<ref>{{cite news |title=History |url=https://orwellsociety.com/about-the-society/history/ |access-date=17 October 2023 |website=The Orwell Society}}</ref>

Apart from theatre adaptations of his books, several works were written with Orwell as one of the main characters.

* In 2012 a musical play, ''One Georgie Orwell'', by Peter Cordwell and Carl Picton was performed at the [[Greenwich Theatre]], London. It explored Orwell's life, his concerns for the world that he lived in, and for the Britain that he loved.<ref>Venables, Dione (6 May 2012). ''[https://orwellsociety.com/review-one-georgie-orwell/ One Georgie Orwell @ Greenwich Theatre]'' The Orwell Society.</ref> 
* In 2014 a play by the playwright [[Joe Sutton]] titled ''Orwell in America'' was first performed by the Northern Stage theatre company in White River Junction, Vermont. It is a fictitious account of Orwell doing a book tour in the United States (something he never did in his lifetime). It moved to [[off-Broadway]] in 2016.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Jaworowski|first1=Ken|title=Review: A Dynamic Actor Redeems 'Orwell in America'|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/theater/review-orwell-in-america.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220102/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/theater/review-orwell-in-america.html |archive-date=2 January 2022 |url-access=limited |url-status=live|work=The New York Times|date=16 October 2016}}{{cbignore}}</ref> 
* In 2017 ''Mrs Orwell'' by the British playwright Tony Cox opened at the [[The Old Red Lion, Islington|Old Red Lion Theatre]]&nbsp;in London&nbsp;before transferring&nbsp;to the&nbsp;[[Southwark Playhouse]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=6 August 2017 |title=Mrs Orwell review – Cressida Bonas is persuasive as Orwell's muse and mistress |url=http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/aug/06/mrs-orwell-review-tony-cox |access-date=6 January 2023 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}</ref> The play centres on Orwell's second wife Sonia Brownell (played by [[Cressida Bonas]]), her reasons for marrying Orwell and her relationship with Lucian Freud.
* In 2019, Tasmanian theatre company Blue Cow presented the play ''101'' by Cameron Hindrum,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tale of legendary author brought to life – Eastern Shore Sun |date=15 July 2019 |url=https://www.easternshoresun.com.au/tale-of-legendary-author-brought-to-life/ |access-date=6 January 2023 |language=en}}</ref> in which Orwell is seen working on his novel ''1984'' "while keeping his severe illness at bay and balancing the demands of fatherhood, art, family and success."<ref>{{Cite web |date=9 January 2022 |title=101 – Australian Plays Transform |url=https://apt.org.au/product/101-2/ |access-date=6 January 2023 |language=en-AU}}</ref>
*Orwell is the main character in a 2017 novel ''The Last Man in Europe'' by the Australian author [[Dennis Glover]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Last Man in Europe by Dennis Glover {{!}} Review Essay by Ben Brooker |url=https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/the-last-man-in-europe-review/ |access-date=20 August 2023 |website=Sydney Review of Books |language=en |archive-date=20 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230820045229/https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/the-last-man-in-europe-review/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
*The young Eric Blair is the main character in [[Paul Theroux]]'s 2024 novel ''[[Burma Sahib]]'', a fictional narrative of Blair's five years in the country.<ref>{{Cite web |date=13 March 2024 |title=Burma Sahib: A Personal (Re)View |url=https://orwellsociety.com/burma-sahib-a-personal-review/ |access-date=5 July 2024 |website=The Orwell Society |language=en-GB}}</ref>
Orwell's birthplace, a [[bungalow]] in [[Motihari]], Bihar, India, was opened as a museum in May 2015.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/british-novelist-george-orwell-motihari-bihar/1/438537.html|title=George Orwell's house in Bihar turned into museum|date=17 May 2015|website=India Today|access-date=16 January 2018}}</ref>

=== Archive ===
In 1960 Orwell's widow Sonia deposited his papers on permanent loan to [[University College London]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=UCL Special Collections |title=George Orwell Papers: Acquisition |url=https://archives.ucl.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=ORWELL |access-date=5 December 2023 |website=UCL Archives Catalogue}}</ref> The collection contains Orwell's literary notebooks, manuscripts and typescripts of his work, personal and political diaries, correspondence and family material.<ref name=":3" /> Since the initial donation the papers - now known as the George Orwell Archive - have been supplemented by further donations from family, friends and business associates.<ref name=":3" /> Orwell's son Richard Blair has purchased additional material for the collection since its inception; in 2023 Blair was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from University College London for his contributions.<ref>{{Cite web |last=UCL |date=14 September 2023 |title=UCL awards 2023 Honorary Degrees and Fellowships |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/alumni/news/2023/sep/ucl-awards-2023-honorary-degrees-and-fellowships |access-date=5 December 2023 |website=UCL Alumni |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=UCL Special Collections |date=6 December 2021 |title=Important letters donated to the George Orwell Archive |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/news/2021/dec/important-letters-donated-george-orwell-archive |access-date=5 December 2023 |website=Library Services |language=en}}</ref>

University College London also holds an extensive collection of Orwell's books, including rare and early editions of his works, translations into other languages and titles from his own library.<ref>{{Cite web |last=UCL Special Collections |date=23 August 2018 |title=Orwell Book Collection |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/a-z/orwell |access-date=5 December 2023 |website=Library Services |language=en}}</ref>

===Statue===
[[File:George Orwell statue - BBC London (38562767202).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Statue of George Orwell]] outside [[Broadcasting House]], headquarters of the [[BBC]]]]
A [[statue of George Orwell]], sculpted by the British sculptor [[Martin Jennings]], was unveiled on 7 November 2017 outside [[Broadcasting House]], the headquarters of the BBC.{{refn|The statue is owned by [[The Orwell Society]] under the patronage of [[Richard Blair (patron)|Richard Blair]], Orwell's adopted son|group= n}} The wall behind the statue is inscribed with the following phrase: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear". These are words from his proposed preface to ''Animal Farm'' and a rallying cry for the idea of free speech in an open society.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/entries/41a0eedb-c435-479d-aa63-a89ad81daf01|title=Orwell statue unveiled|date=7 November 2017|website=BBC|access-date=7 November 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/09/homage-to-george-orwell-bbc-statue-wins-planning-permission|title=Homage to George Orwell: BBC statue wins planning permission|first=Maev|last=Kennedy|date=9 August 2016|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=30 September 2017|via=www.theguardian.com}}</ref>

===Other honours===
In January 2025 the [[Royal Mint]] issued a new £2 coin to mark the 75th anniversary of Orwell's death. The design, by Henry Gray, is an allusion to ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', showing an eye with a camera lens at its centre, and including two quotations from the book.<ref>{{cite news |title=1984 author Orwell celebrated by new £2 Royal Mint coin |work=The Herald |date=13 January 2025 |location=Glasgow |page=3}}</ref>