Page "George Orwell" Paragraph 79

The sanatorium at Cranham consisted of a series of small wooden chalets or huts in a remote part of the Cotswolds near Stroud.

Visitors were shocked by Orwell's appearance and concerned by the short-comings and ineffectiveness of the treatment.

Friends were worried about his finances, but by now he was comparatively well-off.

He was writing to many of his friends, including Jacintha Buddicom, who had " rediscovered " him, and in March 1949, was visited by Celia Kirwan.

Kirwan had just started working for a Foreign Office unit, the Information Research Department, set up by the Labour government to publish anti-communist propaganda, and Orwell gave her a list of people he considered to be unsuitable as IRD authors because of their pro-communist leanings.

Orwell's list, not published until 2003, consisted mainly of writers but also included actors and Labour MPs.

Orwell received more streptomycin treatment and improved slightly.

In June 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four was published to immediate critical and popular acclaim.