Eileen O'Shaughnessy, in Her Own Words - The Complete Letters of George Orwell's Wife

This book brings together the complete letters of Eileen O'Shaughnessy, the first wife of Eric Blair, the man we know as George Orwell. Although they married in 1936 and spent the next nine years together, Eileen s extensive influence on Orwell s work is only now being understood. This collection of letters is enhanced by interviews with some of those who remember being told as children that Eileen had an extremely important role in the final style and writing of Animal Farm. The couple were prolific letter-writers, and about 65 of Eileen s letters have survived. These letters offer us a glimpse into their lives and marriage in Eileen s own words. Eileen was an accomplished writer in her lifetime, and the letters are erudite and entertaining, whilst offering tantalizing glimpses of what it was like to share a life with the creative genius that is George Orwell.

List of contents

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: School and juvenilia (1905-1921).- Chapter 3: Oxford and London (1922-1934).- Chapter 4: Meeting Orwell and marriage (1935-1936).- Chapter 5: Saving Orwell twice (1936-1938).- Chapter 6: To Marrakesh (1938-1939).- Chapter 7:  At war (1939-1941).- Chapter 8: Eileen at the Ministry of Food (1941-1944).- Chapter 9: Last letters (1945).

About the author

Angela Smith is Professor of Language and Culture at the University of Sunderland, UK. She has published extensively in the areas of gender studies, media discourse, and politeness theory.
Sylvia Topp is the author of Eileen: The Making of George Orwell (2020).

Product details

• Authors: Angela Smith, Sylvia Topp
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 11.02.2026
• EAN: 9783032033666
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3203366-6
• No. of pages: 262
• Illustrations: XIV, 262 p. 5 illus.
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Literatur: Geschichte und Kritik, George Orwell, Life Writing, auseinandersetzen, Modernism, Animal Farm, Biographie, Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft, Eric Blair, Twentieth-Century Literature, Women's Studies, Spanish Civil War, Literary Criticism, Narrative Text and Prose, Literature, Gender and Sexuality, Wartime London