ORWELL, George (pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950). Autograph letter signed ('Geo. Orwell') to Mrs Harrop, Room 65, Private Wing, University College Hospital, London, 2 October 1949. One page, 178 x 140mm. 'Many thanks for your letter & the review of "1984". My signature is below. I am afraid you must excuse bad handwriting, as I am in v[er]y poor health'. The dying Orwell refers to his most famous work, in one of the last letters written by his own hand. Orwell writes from University College Hospital, to which he had been transferred in the previous month from a sanatorium in Gloucestershire. His doctors -- though not Orwell himself -- were aware that he was in the last stages of tuberculosis: he died of a tubercular haemorrhage on 21 January 1950. According to ABPC/RBH, this is by some months the latest letter written by Orwell to have appeared at auction (following a letter to Anthony Powell of 6 June 1949). Indeed, it is remarkable that it should be in autograph, as letters from his last months were generally dictated or written on his behalf. Orwell's climactic work, Nineteen Eighty-Four , was published on 8 June 1949, and we can find no other letter in auction records to mention his most famous work by name.
ORWELL, George (pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950). Autograph letter signed ('Geo. Orwell') to Mrs Harrop, Room 65, Private Wing, University College Hospital, London, 2 October 1949. One page, 178 x 140mm. 'Many thanks for your letter & the review of "1984". My signature is below. I am afraid you must excuse bad handwriting, as I am in v[er]y poor health'. The dying Orwell refers to his most famous work, in one of the last letters written by his own hand. Orwell writes from University College Hospital, to which he had been transferred in the previous month from a sanatorium in Gloucestershire. His doctors -- though not Orwell himself -- were aware that he was in the last stages of tuberculosis: he died of a tubercular haemorrhage on 21 January 1950. According to ABPC/RBH, this is by some months the latest letter written by Orwell to have appeared at auction (following a letter to Anthony Powell of 6 June 1949). Indeed, it is remarkable that it should be in autograph, as letters from his last months were generally dictated or written on his behalf. Orwell's climactic work, Nineteen Eighty-Four , was published on 8 June 1949, and we can find no other letter in auction records to mention his most famous work by name.
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