by Jeffry Babb
George Orwell (1903–50) is frequently rated as one of the most influential English writers of the 20th century. Yet, like many prominent writers, his early life gave little hint of his promise.
He attended a primary school run by the Ursuline Sisters, who had been expelled from France following the Dreyfus Affair, when religious education was banned in France. He later boarded at St Cyprian’s, a prep school, and succeeded in entering Eton on a scholarship.
Orwell desc…
