Hell Yeah George Orwell!

SUBJECT: GEORGE ORWELL'S SISTERS. I've read Benard Crick's biography of Orwell. In it, he says that (I'm paraphrasing) Orwell's sister, Avril -- for a great deal of his life -- thought that his writing was a waste of time/she couldn't understand the appeal. But, apparently, after his death, she softened, read all of his books, and appreciated him. Crick does not cite any of this. I wondered how he knew this information. Thanks a lot.

From a letter from Lady Oxford and the Daily Telegraph, on the subject of war economies. 'Since most London houses are deserted there is little entertaining...in any case, most people have to part with their cooks and live in hotels.' Apparently, noting will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exist.

The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.

After the sort of winters we have had to endure recently, the spring does seem miraculous, because it has become gradually harder and harder to believe that it is actually going to happen. Every February since 1940 I have found myself thinking that this time Winter is going to be permanent.

There is a page online that shows the original first paragraph of 1984 and the notes Orwell made that would result in changes. I now can't find the page.