Name	Fred Durst
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	William Frederick Durst
Birth date	August 20, 1970
Birth place	Gastonia, North Carolina
Origin	Jacksonville, Florida, United States
Years active	1994–2006; 2009–present
Occupation	Musician, film director
Instrument	Vocals, guitar
Genre	Nu metal, rap metal
Associated acts	Limp Bizkit
Networth	US$2.9 to $7.0 billion }}

Fred Durst (born August 20, 1970) is an American musician and film director from Jacksonville, Florida. Durst grew up in Gastonia, North Carolina and played in a number of local bands in Florida while mowing lawns and working as a tattoo artist for financial support. Durst is best known as the vocalist of the multi-platinum rock band Limp Bizkit, formed in 1994, with whom he has released six studio albums.

Since 2006, Durst has also become known for his work in independent films. He costarred in the film ''Population 436'', and made his directorial debut in 2007 with the film ''The Education of Charlie Banks''. Durst directed a second film, ''The Longshots'' in 2008, and will direct another film, ''Pawn Shop Chronicles'', which is currently in production.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Fred Durst was born and grew up in Gastonia, North Carolina, where he took an interest in breakdancing, hip hop, punk rock and heavy metal. He began to rap, skate, beatbox and deejay. After dropping out of United States Navy bootcamp, Durst returned to Jacksonville, Florida, where he mowed lawns and worked as a tattoo artist for money, and began developing an idea for a band that combined elements of rock and hip hop.

Durst played with three other bands, Split 26, Malachi Sage, which were unsuccessful, and 10 Foot Shindig, which Durst left to form a new band.

Formation of Limp Bizkit (1994–1998)[link]

In 1994, Durst, Malachi Sage bassist Sam Rivers and Rivers' cousin John Otto, jammed and wrote three songs together, and Wes Borland later joined their band as a guitarist. Durst named the band Limp Bizkit, because he wanted a name that would repel listeners. Limp Bizkit developed a cult following in the underground music scene, attracting crowds by word of mouth and covering George Michael's "Faith" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up".

Later, when Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to drink beer and tattoo the band members. Although Durst's tattoos were unimpressive, he was able to persuade Reginald Arvizu to listen to a demo by Limp Bizkit, consisting of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stuck". Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which gave the band a new audience. DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist; Durst's disagreements with Borland led the guitarist to quit and rejoin the band.

In 1997, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip, a subsidiary of Interscope Records, and released their debut album, ''Three Dollar Bill, Yall$'' to minimal response. However, despite the lukewarm response to his band's album, Durst was appointed Senior Vice President of A&R; at Interscope. On October 23, 1997, Durst met the band Staind, and reacted negatively to their album's cover, attempting to get them thrown off the bill due to its offensiveness. However, Durst later praised the band's performance, telling them that they were "the best band he had seen in two years." Subsequently, Durst drove to Florida and recorded a demo with the band, helping coach vocalist Aaron Lewis. Durst also introduced producer Ross Robinson to the band Cold.

After Limp Bizkit finished a tour with the band Deftones, Durst and DJ Lethal were asked by Max Cavalera, formerly of the band Sepultura, to appear on "Bleed", a song from the self-titled debut of his new band Soulfly. Cavalera stated that producer Ross Robinson recommended that he work with Durst. Durst also made an appearance on Korn's album ''Follow the Leader''. Jonathan Davis had intended to write a battle rap with B-Real of Cypress Hill, but the latter's label wouldn't let him do it, and Durst was tapped instead. Davis and Durst wrote the lyrics for "All in the Family", which featured the two vocalists trading insults. Davis and Durst would often offer suggestions for each others lyrics; a lyric written by Durst as "tootin' on your bagpipe" was changed to "fagpipes" by Davis, who stated "I helped him bag on me better".

Durst began to take an interest in directing, and directed a music video for Limp Bizkit's single "Faith" in promotion for its appearance in the film ''Very Bad Things'', but was unsatisfied with it, and directed a second video which paid tribute to tourmates like Primus, Deftones and Mötley Crüe, who appeared in the video.

Mainstream success and controversies (1999–2005)[link]

Limp Bizkit achieved mainstream success with the albums ''Significant Other'' (1999) and ''Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water'' (2000). In the summer of 1999, Limp Bizkit played at the highly anticipated Woodstock '99 show in front of approximately 200,000 people. Violent action sprang up during and after their performance, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during a performance of the song "Break Stuff". Several sexual assaults, that included but were not limited to rapes, were reported in the aftermath of the concert. Durst stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy". Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?" Les Claypool told the ''San Francisco Examiner'', "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press', so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy."

In June 2000, Limp Bizkit performed at the WXRK Dysfunctional Family Picnic, but showed up an hour late for their set. An Interscope spokesman stated that there was confusion over the band's set time. During the band's performance, Durst criticized Creed singer Scott Stapp, calling him "an egomaniac". Creed's representatives later presented Durst with an autographed anger management manual during a later appearance on ''Total Request Live''. In the summer, Limp Bizkit's tour was sponsored by the controversial file sharing service Napster. Durst was an outspoken advocate of file sharing.

During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Durst performed Limp Bizkit's song "Livin' It Up", as a duet with Christina Aguilera. In response to the performance, Filter frontman Richard Patrick called Durst a "pop-lovin' piece of frozen dog shit" and claimed that "Fred getting onstage with Christina Aguilera embarrassed us all." In response to the negative reactions to the performance, Durst remarked, "I already told you guys before, I did it all for the nookie, man." Aguilera, in response to Durst's remark, commented, "He got no nookie."

During a 2001 tour of Australia at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, fans rushed the stage in the mosh pit, and teenager Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation. In court, Durst testified he had warned the concert's organizers Aaron Jackson, Will Pearce and Amar Tailor and promoter Vivian Lees of the potential dangers of such minimal security. After viewing videotapes and hearing witness testimony, however, the coroner said it was evident that the density of the crowd was dangerous at the time Limp Bizkit took the stage, stating that Fred Durst should have acted more responsibly when the problem became apparent. Durst stated that he was "emotionally scarred" because of the teenager's death.

In 2002, Durst was tapped to write songs for Britney Spears, and later said that he was in a relationship with her. However, Spears denied Durst's claims. In a 2009 interview, he explained that "I just guess at the time it was taboo for a guy like me to be associated with a gal like her." In February 2005, a sex tape featuring Durst was released on the Internet. Durst filed a $70 million lawsuit against ten websites that posted the video.

In March, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, IL, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. An article in the ''Sun-Times'' stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow.

In May 2005, ''The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1)'' was released. Sammy Siegler took over drumming duties for the band for much of the album. At Durst's insistence, the album was released as an underground album, without any advertising or promotion. The album sold over 1,000,000 copies worldwide, peaking at number 24 on the ''Billboard'' 200. Durst later announced that despite the album's title, no sequel to ''The Unquestionable Truth'' would be produced. Later in the year, the band released a ''Greatest Hitz'' album.

Film career (2006 onward)[link]

While Limp Bizkit was on hiatus, Durst began working in independent films, earning higher acclaim for his film work than his music. In 2006, Durst costarred in the film ''Population 436''. His directorial debut, ''The Education of Charlie Banks'' was released the following year. The film, which starred Jesse Eisenberg, Chris Marquette and Jason Ritter, received mixed reviews; Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggravate, assigned the film a "Tomatometer" score of 46%. The website's consensus stated, "Unevenness and earnestness mire this otherwise sweet, surprising coming of age drama." A second directorial effort, ''The Longshots'', starring Ice Cube and Keke Palmer, was released in 2008. Rotten Tomatoes assigned the film a score of 39%, with the consensus indicating that the film was "a largely formulaic affair, rarely deviating from the inspirational sports movie playbook." The same year, Durst appeared as a bartender in the ''House, M.D.'' episodes "House's Head" and "Wilson's Heart". Durst will direct and produce ''Pawn Shop Chronicles'', starring Paul Walker. Coproducer Jordan Schur described the film as "a hillbilly ''Pulp Fiction''".

Limp Bizkit reunion (2009-present)[link]

In 2009, the original lineup of Limp Bizkit reunited and began touring. Durst announced that they had begun to record a new album, which would be titled ''Gold Cobra''. The album was released on June 28, 2011, receiving mixed reviews. It peaked at number 16 on the ''Billboard'' 200. Durst has a nine year old son named Dallas from another relationship. In 2009, Durst married Esther Nazarov and split after three months. In 2012, Durst appeared on the Insane Clown Posse cover album ''Covered, Smothered & Chunked'', appearing on the AMG cover "Bitch Better Have My Money". Durst resides in Los Angeles, California.

Filmography[link]

! Year	! Title
2007	''The Education of Charlie Banks''
2008	''The Longshots''
TBA	''Pawn Shop Chronicles''

References[link]

External links[link]

Official Limp Bizkit website

Category:1970 births Category:American film directors Category:American heavy metal singers Category:American male singers Category:American music video directors Category:American musicians of German descent Category:American rappers Category:American rock singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Limp Bizkit members Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Jacksonville, Florida Category:Nu metal singers Category:People from Gaston County, North Carolina Category:Rappers from Florida Category:Southern hip hop musicians Category:Tattoo artists

bg:Фред Дърст bar:Fred Durst cs:Fred Durst da:Fred Durst de:Fred Durst el:Φρεντ Ντερστ es:Fred Durst fr:Fred Durst ko:프레드 더스트 id:Fred Durst it:Fred Durst he:פרד דורסט lv:Freds Dērsts lt:Fred Durst hu:Fred Durst nl:Fred Durst no:Fred Durst uz:Fred Durst pl:Fred Durst pt:Fred Durst ru:Дёрст, Фред fi:Fred Durst sv:Fred Durst tr:Fred Durst uk:Фред Дерст

name	George Orwell
alt	A photo showing head and shoulders of a middle-aged Caucasian man with a slim mustache.
pseudonym	George Orwell
birth name	Eric Arthur Blair
birth date	June 25, 1903
birth place	Motihari, Bihar, British India
death date	January 21, 1950
death place	University College Hospital, London, England, United Kingdom
resting place	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom
occupation	Novelist, political writer and journalist
language	English
nationality	British
citizenship	British subject
alma mater	Eton College
period	6 October 1928 – 1 January 1950
genre	Dystopia, roman à clef, satire
subject	Anti-fascism and anti-Stalinist left, democratic socialism, literary criticism, news, polemic
notableworks	''Homage to Catalonia'' (1938)''Animal Farm'' (1945)''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949)essays
spouse	Eileen O'Shaughnessy (1935–1945, her death)Sonia Brownell (1949–1950, his death)
children	Richard Horatio Blair
relatives	Richard Walmesley Blair (father)Ida Mabel Blair (née Limouzin) (mother)Marjorie (sister)Avril (sister)
influences	James Burnham, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Henry Fielding, Gustave Flaubert, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Arthur Koestler, Jack London, W. Somerset Maugham, Upton Sinclair, Jonathan Swift, Leo Tolstoy, Leon Trotsky, H.G. Wells, Tom Wintringham, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Émile Zola
influenced	Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Anthony Burgess, Albert Camus, Noam Chomsky, Cory Doctorow, Johann Hari, Raoul Vaneigem, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Hitchens, John King, Ignazio Silone, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, Andrew Sullivan, Joe Sacco, Chris Hedges, Glenn Greenwald
awards
signature	Orwell-Signature.svg|380px
signature alt	The signature of George Orwell, reading "Eric Blair / ('George Orwell')
website	}}

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism.

Considered perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is best known for the dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949) and the allegorical novella ''Animal Farm'' (1945), which together have sold more copies than any two books by any other 20th-century author. His book ''Homage to Catalonia'' (1938), an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, is widely acclaimed, as are his numerous essays on politics, literature, language and culture. In 2008, ''The Times'' ranked him second on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Orwell's influence on popular and political culture endures, and several of his neologisms, along with the term ''Orwellian''—a byword for totalitarian or manipulative social practices—have entered the vernacular.

Biography[link]

Early life and education[link]

Eric Arthur Blair was born on 25 June 1903, in Motihari, Bihar, in India. His great-grandfather Charles Blair had been a wealthy country gentleman in Dorset who had married Lady Mary Fane, daughter of Thomas Fane, 8th Earl of Westmorland, and had income as an absentee landlord of slave plantations in Jamaica. His grandfather, Thomas Richard Arthur Blair, was a clergyman. Although the gentility was passed down the generations, the prosperity was not; Eric Blair described his family as "lower-upper-middle class". His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service. His mother, Ida Mabel Blair (née Limouzin), grew up in Moulmein, Burma where her French father was involved in speculative ventures. Eric had two sisters: Marjorie, five years older, and Avril, five years younger. When Eric was one year old, his mother took him to England.

In 1904, Blair's mother settled at Henley-on-Thames. Thereafter, Eric was brought up in the company of his mother and sisters, and apart from a brief visit, in the summer of 1907, he did not see his father again until 1912. His mother's diary from 1905 indicates a lively round of social activity and artistic interests. The family moved to Shiplake before the First World War, and Eric became friendly with the Buddicom family, especially Jacintha Buddicom. When they first met, he was standing on his head in a field, and on being asked why, he said, "You are noticed more if you stand on your head than if you are right way up." Jacintha and Eric read and wrote poetry and dreamed of becoming famous writers. He told her that he might write a book in similar style to that of H. G. Wells's ''A Modern Utopia''. During this period, he enjoyed shooting, fishing and birdwatching with Jacintha's brother and sister. At the age of five, Eric Blair was sent as a day-boy to the convent school in Henley-on-Thames which Marjorie attended (a Roman Catholic convent run by French Ursulines, exiled from France after religious education was banned there in 1903). His mother wanted him to have a public school education, but his family was not wealthy enough to afford the fees, making it necessary for him to obtain a scholarship. Ida Blair's brother Charles Limouzin, who lived on the South Coast of England, was asked to find the best possible school to prepare Eric for public school entrance, and he recommended St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, East Sussex. Limouzin, who was a proficient golfer, came into contact with the school and its headmaster at the Royal Eastbourne Golf Club where he won several competitions in 1903 and 1904. The headmaster undertook to help Blair to win the scholarship, and made a private financial arrangement which allowed Blair's parents to pay only half the normal fees. In September 1911 Eric arrived at St Cyprian's. He boarded at the school until he left going home only for school holidays. He knew nothing of the reduced-fee arrangement until his third year at the school, though he 'soon recognised that he was from a poorer home'. Blair hated the school and many years later based his posthumously published essay ''Such, Such Were the Joys'' on his time there. At St. Cyprian's, Blair first met Cyril Connolly, who himself became a noted writer and who, as the editor of ''Horizon'', published many of Orwell's essays. As part of his school work, Blair wrote two poems that were published in the ''Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard'', He came second to Connolly in the Harrow History Prize, had his work praised by the school's external examiner, and earned scholarships to Wellington College and Eton College. An Eton scholarship did not guarantee a place and none was immediately available for Blair. Instead of taking up the Wellington scholarship he elected to stay at St Cyprian's until December 1916 in case a place at Eton materialised.

In January, Blair took up the place at Wellington where he spent the Spring term. In May 1917 a place became available for him as a King's Scholar at Eton which he took up, and he remained at Eton until December 1921 when he left aged eighteen and a half. Wellington, Orwell told his childhood friend Jacintha Buddicom, was 'beastly', but at Eton he said he was 'interested and happy'. His principal tutor was A. S. F. Gow, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge who remained a source of advice later in his career. Blair was briefly taught French by Aldous Huxley who spent a short interlude teaching at Eton. Stephen Runciman, who was at Eton with Blair, noted that he and his contemporaries appreciated Huxley's use of words and phrases, but there is no evidence of contact between Orwell and Huxley at Eton outside the classroom. Cyril Connolly followed Blair to Eton, but because they were in separate years they did not associate with each other. Blair's academic performance reports suggest that he neglected his academic studies, but during his time at Eton, he worked with Roger Mynors to produce a college magazine, ''The Election Times'', joined in the production of other publications—''College Days'' and ''Bubble and Squeak''—and participated in the Eton Wall Game. His parents could not afford to send him to university without another scholarship, and they concluded from his poor results that he would not be able to obtain one. However, Runciman noted that he had a romantic idea about the East and it was decided that Blair should join the Indian Police Service. To do this, it was necessary to pass an entrance examination. His father had retired to Southwold, Suffolk by this time and Blair was enrolled at a "crammer" there called Craighurst where he brushed up on his classics, English and History. Blair passed the exam, coming seventh out of the twenty-six candidates who exceeded the set pass mark.

Policing in Burma[link]

Blair's grandmother lived at Moulmein, and with family connections in the area, his choice of posting was Burma. In October 1922 he sailed on board S.S. Herefordshire via the Suez Canal and Ceylon to join the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. A month later, he arrived at Rangoon and made the journey to Mandalay, the site of the police training school. After a short posting at Maymyo, Burma's principal hill station, he was posted to the frontier outpost of Myaungmya in the Irrawaddy Delta at the beginning of 1924.

His imperial policeman's life gave him considerable responsibilities for a young man, while his contemporaries were still at university in England. When he was posted farther east in the Delta to Twante as a sub-divisional officer, he was responsible for the security of some 200,000 people. At the end of 1924 he was promoted to Assistant District Superintendent and posted to Syriam, which was closer to Rangoon. Syriam was the site of the refinery of the Burmah Oil Company, "the surrounding land a barren waste, all vegetation killed off by the fumes of sulphur dioxide pouring out day and night from the stacks of the refinery." Its proximity to Rangoon however, a cosmopolitan seaport, had its rewards: Blair went into the city as often as he could," to browse in a bookshop; to eat well-cooked food; to get away from the boring routine of police life." In September 1925 he went to Insein, the home of Insein Prison the second largest jail in Burma. In Insein, he had "long talks on every conceivable subject" with a woman named Elisa Maria Langford-Rae (later the wife of Kazi Lhendup Dorjee), who noted his "sense of utter fairness in minutest details".

In April 1926 he moved to Moulmein, where his grandmother lived. At the end of that year, he went to Katha, in Upper Burma, where he contracted Dengue fever in 1927. He was entitled to a leave in England that year, and in view of his illness, was allowed to go home in July. While on leave in England and on holiday with his family in Cornwall in September 1927, he reappraised his life, decided not to return to Burma, and resigned from the Indian Imperial Police with the intention of becoming a writer. His Burma police experience yielded the novel ''Burmese Days'' (1934) and the essays "A Hanging" (1931) and "Shooting an Elephant" (1936). In Burma, Orwell had acquired a reputation as someone who didn't fit in – he spent much of his time alone, reading or pursuing non-''pukka'' activities such as attending the churches of the ethnic Karen group. A colleague, Roger Beadon, recalled (in a 1969 recording for the BBC) that Orwell was adept at learning the language and that before he left Burma, "was able to speak fluently with Burmese priests in 'very high-flown Burmese.'" Orwell wrote later that he felt guilty for his role in the machine of empire and he "began to look more closely at his own country and saw that England also had its oppressed..." Physical marks left by Burma remained with Orwell throughout his life. "While in Burma, he acquired a moustache similar to those worn by officers of the British regiments stationed there. [He] also acquired some tattoos; on each knuckle he had a small untidy blue circle. Many Burmese living in rural areas still sport tattoos like this – they are believed to protect against bullets and snake bites."

London and Paris[link]

In England, he settled back in the family home at Southwold, renewing acquaintance with local friends and attending an Old Etonian dinner. He visited his old tutor Gow at Cambridge for advice on becoming a writer. Early in the autumn of 1927 he moved to London. Ruth Pitter, a family acquaintance, helped him find lodgings, and by the end of 1927 he had moved into rooms in Portobello Road;(a blue plaque commemorates his residence there.) Pitter's association with the move "would have lent it a reassuring respectability in Mrs Blair's eyes." Pitter had a sympathetic interest in Blair's writing, pointed out weaknesses in his poetry, and advised him to write about what he knew. In fact he decided to write of "certain aspects of the present that he set out to know" and "ventured into the East End of London – the first of the occasional sorties he would make to discover for himself the world of poverty and the down-and-outers who inhabit it. He had found a subject. These sorties, explorations, expeditions, tours or immersions were made intermittently over a period of five years."

Following the precedent of Jack London, a writer he admired (and particularly London's "The People of the Abyss"), Orwell started his exploratory expeditions slumming in the poorer parts of London. On his first outing he set out to Limehouse Causeway spending his first night in a common lodging house, possibly George Levy's 'kip'. For a while he "went native" in his own country, dressing like a tramp and making no concessions to middle class mores and expectations; he recorded his experiences of the low life for later use in "The Spike", his first published essay, and the latter half of his first book, ''Down and Out in Paris and London'' (1933).

In the spring of 1928, he moved to Paris, where the comparatively low cost of living and bohemian lifestyle offered an attraction for many aspiring writers, and he lived in the Rue du Pot de Fer, a working class district in the 5th Arrondissement. His Aunt Nellie Limouzin also lived in Paris and gave him social and, if necessary, financial support. He worked on novels, including an early version of ''Burmese Days'' but nothing else survives from that activity. More successful as a journalist, he published articles in ''Monde'', a political/literary journal edited by Henri Barbusse, – his first article as a professional writer, ''La Censure en Angleterre'', appeared in this paper on 6 October 1928 – ''G. K.'s Weekly'' – where his first article to appear in England, ''A Farthing Newspaper'', was printed on 29 December 1928  – and ''Le Progrès Civique'' (founded by the left-wing coalition Le Cartel des Gauches). Three pieces appeared in successive weeks in ''Progrès Civique'', the first looked at unemployment, the next, a day in the life of a tramp, and the third, the beggars of London. "In one or another of its destructive forms, poverty was to become his obsessive subject – at the heart of almost everything he wrote until ''Homage to Catalonia''."

He fell seriously ill in February 1929 and was taken to the Hôpital Cochin in the 14th arrondissement, a free hospital maintained for the teaching of medical students (the basis of his essay ''How the Poor Die'', published in 1946), and shortly afterwards had all his money stolen from the lodging house. Whether through necessity or simply to collect material, he undertook menial jobs like dishwashing in a fashionable hotel on the rue de Rivoli, providing experiences to be used in ''Down and Out in Paris and London''. In August 1929, he sent a copy of "The Spike" to ''New Adelphi'' magazine in London. This was owned by John Middleton Murry who had released editorial control to Max Plowman and Sir Richard Rees. Plowman accepted the work for publication.

Southwold[link]

In December 1929, after a year and three quarters in Paris, Blair returned to England and went directly to his parents' house in Southwold, which was to remain his base for the next five years. The family was well established in the local community, and his sister Avril was running a tea house in the town. He became acquainted with many local people including a gym teacher at St Felix Girls' School, Southwold, Brenda Salkeld, the daughter of a clergyman. Although Salkeld rejected his offer of marriage she was to remain a friend and regular correspondent about his work for many years. He also renewed friendships with older friends such as Dennis Collings, whose girlfriend Eleanor Jacques was also to play a part in his life. In the spring he had a short stay in Bramley, Leeds with his sister Marjorie and her husband Humphrey Dakin, who was as unappreciative of Blair as when they knew each other as children. Blair was undertaking some review work for ''Adelphi'' and acting as a private tutor to a disabled child at Southwold. He followed this up by tutoring a family of three boys one of whom, Richard Peters, later became a distinguished academic. "His history in these years is marked by dualities and contrasts. There is Blair leading a respectable, outwardly eventless life at his parents' house in Southwold, writing; then in contrast, there is Blair as Burton (the name he used in his down-and-out episodes) in search of experience in the kips and spikes, in the East End, on the road, and in the hop fields of Kent." He went painting and bathing on the beach, and there he met Mabel and Francis Fierz who were later to influence his career. Over the next year he visited them in London often meeting their friend Max Plowman. Other homes available to him were those of Ruth Pitter and Richard Rees. These acted as places for him to "change" for his sporadic tramping expeditions where one of his jobs was to do domestic work at a lodgings for half a crown a day.

Meanwhile, Blair now contributed regularly to ''Adelphi'', with "A Hanging" appearing in August 1931. From August to September 1931 his explorations of the lower depths continued, and extended to following the East End tradition of working in the Kent hop fields (an activity which his lead character in ''A Clergyman's Daughter'' also engages in), and he kept a diary covering the entire experience. At the end of this, he ended up in the Tooley Street kip, but could not stand it for long and with a financial contribution from his parents moved to Windsor Street where he stayed until Christmas. "Hop Picking", by Eric Blair, appeared in the October 1931 issue of ''New Statesman'', where Cyril Connolly was on the staff. Mabel Fierz put him in contact with Leonard Moore who was to become his literary agent.

At this time Jonathan Cape rejected ''A Scullion's Diary'', the first version of ''Down and Out''. On the advice of Richard Rees he offered it to Faber & Faber, whose editorial director, T. S. Eliot, also rejected it. To conclude the year Blair attempted another exploratory venture of getting himself arrested so that he could spend Christmas in prison, but the relevant authorities did not cooperate and he returned home to Southwold after two days in a police cell.

Teaching[link]

In April 1932 Blair took a job teaching at The Hawthorns High School, a prep school for boys in Hayes, West London. This was a small school that provided private schooling for children of local tradesmen and shopkeepers and comprised only 20 boys and one other master. While at the school he became friendly with the curate of the local parish church and became involved with it. Mabel Fierz had pursued matters with Moore, and at the end of June 1932, Moore told Blair that Victor Gollancz was prepared to publish ''A Scullion's Diary'' for a £40 advance, for his recently founded publishing house, Victor Gollancz Ltd, which was an outlet for radical and socialist works.

At the end of the school summer term in 1932 Blair returned to Southwold, where his parents had been able to buy their own home as a result of a legacy. Blair and his sister Avril spent the summer holidays making the house habitable while he also worked on ''Burmese Days''. He was also spending time with Eleanor Jacques but her attachment to Dennis Collings remained an obstacle to his hopes of a more serious relationship. "Clink", an essay describing his failed attempt to get sent to prison, appeared in the August 1932 number of ''Adelphi''. He returned to teaching at Hayes and prepared for the publication of his work now known as ''Down and Out in Paris and London'' which he wished to publish under an assumed name in order to avoid potential embarrassment to his family for having been a tramp. In a letter to Moore (dated 15 November 1932) he left the choice of pseudonym to him and to Gollancz. Four days later, he wrote to Moore, suggesting the pseudonyms ''P. S. Burton'' (a name he used when tramping), ''Kenneth Miles'', ''George Orwell'', and ''H. Lewis Allways''. He finally adopted the ''nom de plume'' George Orwell because, as he told Eleanor Jacques, "It is a good round English name." ''Down and Out in Paris and London'' was published on 9 January 1933. He had little free time and was still working on ''Burmese Days''. ''Down and Out'' was successful and it was published by Harper and Brothers in New York.

In the summer of 1933 Blair finished at Hawthorns to take up a teaching job at Frays College, in Uxbridge, West London. This was a much larger establishment with 200 pupils and a full complement of staff. He acquired a motorcycle and took trips through the surrounding countryside. On one of these expeditions he became soaked and caught a chill which developed into pneumonia. He was taken to Uxbridge Cottage Hospital where for a time his life was believed to be in danger. When he was discharged in January 1934, he returned to Southwold to convalesce and, supported by his parents, never returned to teaching.

He was disappointed when Gollancz turned down ''Burmese Days'', mainly on the grounds of potential libel actions but Harpers were prepared to publish it in the United States. Meanwhile back at home Blair started work on the novel ''A Clergyman's Daughter'' drawing upon his life as a teacher and on life in Southwold. Eleanor Jacques was now married and had gone to Singapore and Brenda Salkield had left for Ireland, so Blair was relatively lonely in Southwold—pottering on the allotments, walking alone and spending time with his father. Eventually in October, after sending ''A Clergyman's Daughter'' to Moore, he left for London to take a job that had been found for him by his Aunt Nellie Limouzin.

Hampstead[link]

This job was as a part-time assistant in "Booklovers' Corner", a second-hand bookshop in Hampstead run by Francis and Myfanwy Westrope who were friends of Nellie Limouzin in the Esperanto movement. The Westropes had an easy-going outlook and provided him with comfortable accommodation at Warwick Mansions, Pond Street. He was job sharing with Jon Kimche who also lived with the Westropes. Blair worked at the shop in the afternoons, having the mornings free to write and the evenings to socialise. These experiences provided background for the novel ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying'' (1936). As well as the various guests of the Westropes, he was able to enjoy the company of Richard Rees and the ''Adelphi'' writers and Mabel Fierz. The Westropes and Kimche were members of the Independent Labour Party although at this time Blair was not seriously politically aligned. He was writing for the ''Adelphi'' and dealing with pre-publication issues with ''A Clergymans Daughter'' and ''Burmese Days''.

At the beginning of 1935 he had to move out of Warwick Mansions, and Mabel Fierz found him a flat in Parliament Hill. ''A Clergyman's Daughter'' was published on 11 March 1935. In the spring of 1935 Blair met his future wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy when his landlady, Rosalind Obermeyer, who was studying for a masters degree in psychology at University College London, invited some of her fellow students to a party. One of these students, the future translator of Chekhov and author of memoirs Elizaveta Fen, later recalled Orwell and his friend Richard Rees 'draped' at the fireplace, looking, she thought, 'moth-eaten and prematurely aged.' Around this time, Blair had started to write reviews for the ''New English Weekly''. In June, ''Burmese Days'' was published and following Connolly's review of it in the ''New Statesman'', the two re-established contact. In August, Blair moved into a flat in Kentish Town which he shared with Michael Sayers and Rayner Heppenstall. The relationship was sometimes awkward, Orwell and Heppenstall even coming to blows, though they remained friends and later worked together on BBC broadcasts. He was working on ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying'', and also tried to write a serial for the ''News Chronicle'', which was an unsuccessful venture. By October 1935 his flat-mates had moved out, and he was struggling to pay the rent on his own. He remained until the end of January 1936 when he stopped working at ''Booklovers' Corner''.

''The Road to Wigan Pier''[link]

At this time, Victor Gollancz suggested Orwell spend a short time investigating social conditions in economically depressed northern England. Two years earlier J. B. Priestley had written of England north of the Trent and this had stimulated an interest in reportage. Furthermore the depression had introduced a number of working-class writers from the North of England to the reading public.

On 31 January 1936, Orwell set out by public transport and on foot via Coventry, Stafford, the Potteries and Macclesfield, reaching Manchester. Arriving after the banks had closed, he had to stay in a common lodging house. Next day he picked up a list of contact addresses sent by Richard Rees. One of these, trade union official Frank Meade, suggested Wigan, where Orwell spent February staying in dirty lodgings over a tripe shop. At Wigan, he gained entry to many houses to see how people lived, took systematic notes of housing conditions and wages earned, went down a coal mine, and spent days at the local public library consulting public health records and reports on working conditions in mines.

During this time he was distracted by dealing with libel and stylistic issues relating to ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying''. He made a quick visit to Liverpool and spent March in south Yorkshire, spending time in Sheffield and Barnsley. As well as visiting mines, including Grimethorpe, and observing social conditions, he attended meetings of the Communist Party and of Oswald Mosley – "''his speech the usual claptrap—The blame for everything was put upon mysterious international gangs of Jews''" – where he saw the tactics of the Blackshirts – "''one is liable to get both a hammering and a fine for asking a question which Mosley finds it difficult to answer.''" He punctuated his stay with visits to his sister at Headingley, during which he visited the Brontë Parsonage at Haworth, where he was "''chiefly impressed by a pair of Charlotte Brontë's cloth-topped boots, very small, with square toes and lacing up at the sides.''" His investigations gave rise to ''The Road to Wigan Pier'', published by Gollancz for the Left Book Club in 1937. The first half of this work documents his social investigations of Lancashire and Yorkshire. It begins with an evocative description of working life in the coal mines. The second half is a long essay on his upbringing and the development of his political conscience, which includes criticism of some of the groups on the left. Gollancz feared the second half would offend readers and inserted a mollifying preface to the book while Orwell was in Spain.

Orwell needed somewhere where he could concentrate on writing his book, and once again help was provided by Aunt Nellie who was living in a cottage at Wallington, Hertfordshire. It was a very small cottage which had been built in the sixteenth century called the "Stores", with almost no modern facilities, in a tiny village some thirty-five miles north of London. Orwell took over the tenancy and moved in on 2 April 1936. He started work on ''Wigan Pier'' by the end of April and, as well as writing, spent hours working on the garden and investigated the possibility of reopening the Stores as a village shop. ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying'' was published by Gollancz on 20 April 1936. On 4 August Orwell gave a talk at the Adelphi Summer School held at Langham, entitled ''An Outsider Sees the Distressed Areas''; others who spoke at the School included John Strachey, Max Plowman, Karl Polanyi and Reinhold Niebuhr.

Orwell's research for ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' led to him being placed under surveillance by the Special Branch in 1936, for 12 years, until 1 year before the publication of 1984.

Orwell married Eileen O'Shaughnessy on 9 June 1936. Shortly afterwards, the political crisis began in Spain and Orwell followed developments there closely. At the end of the year, concerned by Francisco Franco's Falangist uprising, (supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy), Orwell decided to go to Spain to take part in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. Under the erroneous impression that he needed papers from some left-wing organisation to cross the frontier, on John Strachey's recommendation he applied unsuccessfully to Harry Pollitt, leader of the British Communist Party. Pollitt was suspicious of Orwell's political reliability; he asked him whether he would undertake to join the International Brigade and advised him to get a safe-conduct from the Spanish Embassy in Paris. Not wishing to commit himself until he'd seen the situation ''in situ'', Orwell instead used his Independent Labour Party contacts to get a letter of introduction to John McNair in Barcelona.

The Spanish Civil War and Catalonia[link]

Orwell set out for Spain on about 23 December, dining with Henry Miller in Paris on the way. A few days later at Barcelona, he met John McNair of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) Office who quoted him: ''"I've come to fight against Fascism"''. Orwell stepped into a complex political situation in Catalonia. The Republican government was supported by a number of factions with conflicting aims, including the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM – Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista), the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (a wing of the Spanish Communist Party, which was backed by Soviet arms and aid). The ILP was linked to the POUM and so Orwell joined the POUM.

After a time at the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona he was sent to the relatively quiet Aragon Front under Georges Kopp. By January 1937 he was at Alcubierre above sea level in the depth of winter. There was very little military action, and the lack of equipment and other deprivations made it uncomfortable. Orwell, with his Cadet Corps and police training was quickly made a corporal. On the arrival of a British ILP Contingent about three weeks later, Orwell and the other English militiaman, Williams, were sent with them to Monte Oscuro. The newly arrived ILP contingent included Bob Smillie, Bob Edwards, Stafford Cottman and Jack Branthwaite. The unit was then sent on to Huesca.

Meanwhile, back in England, Eileen had been handling the issues relating to the publication of ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' before setting out for Spain herself, leaving Aunt Nellie Limouzin to look after The Stores. Eileen volunteered for a post in John McNair's office and with the help of Georges Kopp paid visits to her husband, bringing him English tea, chocolate and cigars. Orwell had to spend some days in hospital with a poisoned hand and had most of his possessions stolen by the staff. He returned to the front and saw some action in night attack on the Nationalist trenches where he chased an enemy soldier with a bayonet and bombed an enemy rifle position.

In April, Orwell returned to Barcelona. Wanting to be sent to the Madrid front, which meant he "must join the International Column", he approached a Communist friend attached to the Spanish Medical Aid and explained his case. "Although he did not think much of the Communists, Orwell was still ready to treat them as friends and allies. That would soon change." This was the time of the Barcelona May Days and Orwell was caught up in the factional fighting. He spent much of the time on a roof, with a stack of novels, but encountered Jon Kimche from his Hampstead days during the stay. The subsequent campaign of lies and distortion carried out by the Communist press, in which the POUM was accused of collaborating with the fascists, had a dramatic effect on Orwell. Instead of joining the International Brigades as he had intended, he decided to return to the Aragon Front. Once the May fighting was over, he was approached by a Communist friend who asked if he still intended transferring to the International Brigades. Orwell expressed surprise that they should still want him, because according to the Communist press he was a fascist. "No one who was in Barcelona then, or for months later, will forget the horrible atmosphere produced by fear, suspicion, hatred, censored newspapers, crammed jails, enormous food queues and prowling gangs of armed men."

After his return to the front, he was wounded in the throat by a sniper's bullet. Orwell was considerably taller than the Spanish fighters and had been warned against standing against the trench parapet. Unable to speak, and with blood pouring from his mouth, Orwell was carried on a stretcher to Siétamo, loaded on an ambulance and after a bumpy journey via Barbastro arrived at the hospital at Lleida. He recovered sufficiently to get up and on 27 May 1937 was sent on to Tarragona and two days later to a POUM sanatorium in the suburbs of Barcelona. The bullet had missed his main artery by the barest margin and his voice was barely audible. He received electrotherapy treatment and was declared medically unfit for service.

By the middle of June the political situation in Barcelona had deteriorated and the POUM—painted by the pro-Soviet Communists as a Trotskyist organisation—was outlawed and under attack. The Communist line was that the POUM were 'objectively' Fascist, hindering the Republican cause. " A particularly nasty poster appeared, showing a head with a POUM mask being ripped off to reveal a Swastika-covered face beneath. " Members, including Kopp, were arrested and others were in hiding. Orwell and his wife were under threat and had to lie low, although they broke cover to try to help Kopp.

Finally with their passports in order, they escaped from Spain by train, diverting to Banyuls-sur-Mer for a short stay before returning to England. In the first week of July 1937 Orwell arrived back at Wallington; on 13 July 1937 a deposition was presented to the ''Tribunal for Espionage & High Treason'', Valencia, charging the Orwells with 'rabid Trotskyism', and being agents of the POUM. The trial of the leaders of the POUM and of Orwell (in his absence) took place in Barcelona in October and November 1938. Observing events from French Morocco Orwell wrote that they were " - only a by-product of the Russian Trotskyist trials and from the start every kind of lie, including flagrant absurdities, has been circulated in the Communist press." Orwell's experiences in the Spanish Civil War gave rise to ''Homage to Catalonia'' (1938).

Rest and recuperation[link]

Orwell returned to England in June 1937, and stayed at the O'Shaughnessy home at Greenwich. He found his views on the Spanish Civil War out of favour. Kingsley Martin rejected two of his works and Gollancz was equally cautious. At the same time, the communist ''Daily Worker'' was running an attack on ''The Road to Wigan Pier'', misquoting Orwell as saying "the working classes smell"; a letter to Gollancz from Orwell threatening libel action brought a stop to this. Orwell was also able to find a more sympathetic publisher for his views in Frederic Warburg of Secker & Warburg. Orwell returned to Wallington, which he found in disarray after his absence. He acquired goats, a rooster he called "Henry Ford", and a poodle puppy he called "Marx" and settled down to animal husbandry and writing ''Homage to Catalonia''.

There were thoughts of going to India to work on the ''Pioneer'', a newspaper in Lucknow, but by March 1938 Orwell's health had deteriorated. He was admitted to Preston Hall Sanatorium at Aylesford, Kent, a British Legion hospital for ex-servicemen to which his brother-in-law Laurence O'Shaughnessy was attached. He was thought initially to be suffering from tuberculosis and stayed in the sanatorium until September. A stream of visitors came to see him including Common, Heppenstall, Plowman and Cyril Connolly. Connolly brought with him Stephen Spender, a cause of some embarrassment as Orwell had referred to Spender as a ''"pansy friend"'' some time earlier. ''Homage to Catalonia'' was published by Secker & Warburg and was a commercial flop. In the latter part of his stay at the clinic Orwell was able to go for walks in the countryside and study nature.

The novelist L.H. Myers secretly funded a trip to French Morocco for half a year for Orwell to avoid the English winter and recover his health. The Orwells set out in September 1938 via Gibraltar and Tangier to avoid Spanish Morocco and arrived at Marrakech. They rented a villa on the road to Casablanca and during that time Orwell wrote ''Coming Up for Air''. They arrived back in England on 30 March 1939 and ''Coming Up for Air'' was published in June. Orwell spent time in Wallington and Southwold working on a Dickens essay and it was in July 1939 that Orwell's father, Richard Blair, died.

World War II and ''Animal Farm''[link]

On the outbreak of World War II, Orwell's wife Eileen started work in the Censorship Department in London, staying during the week with her family in Greenwich. Orwell also submitted his name to the Central Register for war effort but nothing transpired. He returned to Wallington, and in the autumn of 1939 he wrote material for ''Inside the Whale and Other Essays''. For the next year he was occupied writing reviews for plays, films and books for ''The Listener'', ''Time and Tide'' and ''New Adelphi''. At the beginning of 1940, the first edition of Connolly's ''Horizon'' appeared, and this provided a new outlet for Orwell's work as well as new literary contacts. In May the Orwells took lease of a flat in London at Dorset Chambers, Chagford Street, Marylebone. It was the time of the Dunkirk evacuation and the death in France of Eileen's brother Lawrence caused her considerable grief and long-term depression.

Orwell was declared "unfit for any kind of military service" by the Medical Board in June, but soon afterwards found an opportunity to become involved in war activities by joining the Home Guard. He shared Tom Wintringham's socialist vision for the Home Guard as a revolutionary People's Militia. Sergeant Orwell managed to recruit Frederic Warburg to his unit. During the Battle of Britain he used to spend weekends with Warburg and his new friend Zionist Tosco Fyvel at Twyford, Berkshire. At Wallington he worked on "England Your England" and in London wrote reviews for various periodicals. Visiting Eileen's family in Greenwich brought him face-to-face with the effects of the blitz on East London.

Early in 1941 he started writing for the American ''Partisan Review'' and contributed to Gollancz' anthology ''The Betrayal of the Left'', written in the light of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (although Orwell referred to it as the Russo-German Pact and the Hitler-Stalin Pact). He also applied unsuccessfully for a job at the Air Ministry. In the Home Guard his mishandling of a mortar put two of his unit in hospital. Meanwhile he was still writing reviews of books and plays and at this time met the novelist Anthony Powell. He also took part in a few radio broadcasts for the Eastern Service of the BBC. In March the Orwells moved to St John's Wood in a 7th floor flat at Langford Court, while at Wallington Orwell was "digging for victory" by planting potatoes.

In August 1941, Orwell finally obtained "war work" when he was taken on full time by the BBC's Eastern Service. He supervised cultural broadcasts to India to counter propaganda from Nazi Germany designed to undermine Imperial links. This was Orwell's first experience of the rigid conformity of life in an office. However it gave him an opportunity to create cultural programmes with contributions from T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, E. M. Forster, Ahmed Ali, Mulk Raj Anand, and William Empson among others.

At the end of August he had a dinner with H. G. Wells which degenerated into a row because Wells had taken offence at observations Orwell made about him in a ''Horizon'' article. In October Orwell had a bout of bronchitis and the illness recurred frequently. David Astor was looking for a provocative contributor for ''The Observer'' and invited Orwell to write for him—the first article appearing in March 1942. In spring of 1942 Eileen changed jobs to work at the Ministry of Food and Orwell's mother and sister Avril took war work in London and came to stay with the Orwells. In the summer, they all moved to a basement at Mortimer Crescent in Kilburn.

At the BBC, Orwell introduced ''Voice'', a literary programme for his Indian broadcasts, and by now was leading an active social life with literary friends, particularly on the political left. Late in 1942, he started writing for the left-wing weekly ''Tribune'' directed by Labour MPs Aneurin Bevan and George Strauss. In March 1943 Orwell's mother died and around the same time he told Moore he was starting work on a new book, which would turn out to be ''Animal Farm''.

In September 1943, Orwell resigned from the BBC post that he had occupied for two years. His resignation followed a report confirming his fears that few Indians listened to the broadcasts, but he was also keen to concentrate on writing ''Animal Farm''. At this time he was also discharged from the Home Guard.

In November 1943, Orwell was appointed literary editor at ''Tribune'', where his assistant was his old friend Jon Kimche. On 24 December 1943, ''Tribune'' published, under the authorship of "John Freeman" – possibly in reference to the British politician – the short essay "Can Socialists Be Happy?", which has since been widely attributed to Orwell; see Bibliography of George Orwell. Orwell was on staff until early 1945, writing over 80 book reviews as well as the regular column "As I Please". He was still writing reviews for other magazines, and becoming a respected pundit among left-wing circles but also close friends with people on the right like Powell, Astor and Malcolm Muggeridge. By April 1944 ''Animal Farm'' was ready for publication. Gollancz refused to publish it, considering it an attack on the Soviet regime which was a crucial ally in the war. A similar fate was met from other publishers (including T. S. Eliot at Faber and Faber) until Jonathan Cape agreed to take it. In May the Orwells had the opportunity to adopt a child, thanks to the contacts of Eileen's sister Gwen O'Shaughnassy, then a doctor in Newcastle upon Tyne. In June a V-1 flying bomb landed on Mortimer Crescent and the Orwells had to find somewhere else to live. Orwell had to scrabble around in the rubble for his collection of books, which he had finally managed to transfer from Wallington, carting them away in a wheelbarrow.

Another bombshell was Cape's reversal of his plan to publish ''Animal Farm''. The decision followed his personal visit to Peter Smollett, an official at the Ministry of Information. Smollett was later identified as a Soviet agent.

The Orwells spent some time in the North East, near Carlton in County Durham, dealing with matters in the adoption of a boy whom they named Richard Horatio Blair. In October 1944 they had set up home in Islington in a flat on the 7th floor of a block. Baby Richard joined them there, and Eileen gave up work to look after her family. Secker and Warburg had agreed to publish ''Animal Farm'', planned for the following March, although it did not appear in print until August 1945. By February 1945 David Astor had invited Orwell to become a war correspondent for the ''Observer''. Orwell had been looking for the opportunity throughout the war, but his failed medical reports prevented him from being allowed anywhere near action. He went to Paris after the liberation of France and to Cologne once it had been occupied by the Allies.

It was while he was there that Eileen went into hospital for a hysterectomy and died under anaesthetic on 29 March 1945. She had not given Orwell much notice about this operation because of worries about the cost and because she expected to make a speedy recovery. Orwell returned home for a while and then went back to Europe. He returned finally to London to cover the 1945 UK General Election at the beginning of July. ''Animal Farm: A Fairy Story'' was published in Britain on 17 August 1945, and a year later in the U.S., on 26 August 1946.

Jura and ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''[link]

''Animal Farm'' struck a particular resonance in the post-war climate and its worldwide success made Orwell a sought-after figure.

For the next four years Orwell mixed journalistic work—mainly for ''Tribune'', ''The Observer'' and the ''Manchester Evening News'', though he also contributed to many small-circulation political and literary magazines—with writing his best-known work, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', which was published in 1949. In the year following Eileen's death he published around 130 articles and was active in various political lobbying campaigns. He employed a housekeeper, Susan Watson, to look after his adopted son at the Islington flat, which visitors now described as "bleak". In September he spent a fortnight on the island of Jura in the Inner Hebrides and saw it as a place to escape from the hassle of London literary life. David Astor was instrumental in arranging a place for Orwell on Jura. Astor's family owned Scottish estates in the area and a fellow Old Etonian Robert Fletcher had a property on the island. During the winter of 1945 to 1946 Orwell made several hopeless and unwelcome marriage proposals to younger women, including Celia Kirwan (who was later to become Arthur Koestler's sister-in-law), Ann Popham who happened to live in the same block of flats and Sonia Brownell, one of Connolly's coterie at the ''Horizon'' office. Orwell suffered a tubercular haemorrhage in February 1946 but disguised his illness. In 1945 or early 1946, while still living at Canonbury Square, Orwell wrote an article on "British Cookery", complete with recipes, commissioned by the British Council. Given the post-war shortages, both parties agreed not to publish it. His sister Marjorie died of kidney disease in May and shortly after, on 22 May 1946, Orwell set off to live on the Isle of Jura.

Barnhill was an abandoned farmhouse with outbuildings near the northern end of the island, situated at the end of a five-mile (8 km), heavily rutted track from Ardlussa, where the owners lived. Conditions at the farmhouse were primitive but the natural history and the challenge of improving the place appealed to Orwell. His sister Avril accompanied him there and young novelist Paul Potts made up the party. In July Susan Watson arrived with Orwell's son Richard. Tensions developed and Potts departed after one of his manuscripts was used to light the fire. Orwell meanwhile set to work on ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. Later Susan Watson's boyfriend David Holbrook arrived. A fan of Orwell since school days, he found the reality very different, with Orwell hostile and disagreeable probably because of Holbrook's membership of the Communist Party. Susan Watson could no longer stand being with Avril and she and her boyfriend left.

Orwell returned to London in late 1946 and picked up his literary journalism again. Now a well-known writer, he was swamped with work. Apart from a visit to Jura in the new year he stayed in London for one of the coldest British winters on record and with such a national shortage of fuel that he burnt his furniture and his child's toys. The heavy smog in the days before the Clean Air Act 1956 did little to help his health about which he was reticent, keeping clear of medical attention. Meanwhile he had to cope with rival claims of publishers Gollancz and Warburg for publishing rights. About this time he co-edited a collection titled ''British Pamphleteers'' with Reginald Reynolds. As a result of the success of ''Animal Farm'', Orwell was expecting a large bill from the Inland Revenue and he contacted a firm of accountants of which the senior partner was Jack Harrison. The firm advised Orwell to establish a company to own his copyright and to receive his royalties and set up a "service agreement" so that he could draw a salary. Such a company "George Orwell Productions Ltd" (GOP Ltd) was set up on 12 September 1947 although the service agreement was not then put into effect. Jack Harrison left the details at this stage to junior colleagues.

In April 1947 Orwell left London for good, ending the leases on the Islington flat and Wallington cottage. Back on Jura in gales and rainstorms he struggled to get on with ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' but through the summer and autumn made good progress. During that time his sister's family visited, and Orwell led a disastrous boating expedition which nearly led to loss of life whilst trying to cross the notorious gulf of Corryvreckan and gave him a soaking which was not good for his health. In December a chest specialist was summoned from Glasgow who pronounced Orwell seriously ill and a week before Christmas 1947 he was in Hairmyres hospital in East Kilbride, then a small village in the countryside, on the outskirts of Glasgow. Tuberculosis was diagnosed and the request for permission to import streptomycin to treat Orwell went as far as Aneurin Bevan, now Minister of Health. By the end of July 1948 Orwell was able to return to Jura and by December he had finished the manuscript of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. In January 1949, in a very weak condition, he set off for a sanatorium in Gloucestershire, escorted by Richard Rees.

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.

Final months and death[link]

Orwell courted Sonia Brownell a second time during the summer, and they announced their marriage in September, shortly before he was removed to University College Hospital in London. Sonia took charge of Orwell's affairs and attended diligently in the hospital, causing concern to some old friends such as Muggeridge. In September 1949 Orwell invited his accountant Harrison to visit him in hospital, and Harrison claimed that Orwell then asked him to become director of GOP Ltd and to manage the company but there was no independent witness. Orwell's wedding took place in the hospital room on 13 October 1949, with David Astor as best man. Orwell was in decline and visited by an assortment of visitors including Muggeridge, Connolly, Lucian Freud, Stephen Spender, Evelyn Waugh, Paul Potts, Anthony Powell and his Eton tutor Anthony Gow. Plans to go to the Swiss Alps were mooted. Further meetings were held with his accountant at which Harrison and Mr and Mrs Blair were confirmed as directors of the company and at which Harrison claimed that the "service agreement" was executed, giving copyright to the company. Orwell's health was in decline again by Christmas. On the evening of 20 January 1950, Potts visited Orwell and slipped away on finding him asleep. However a later visit was made by Jack Harrison who claimed that Orwell gave him 25% of the company. Early on the morning of 21 January, an artery burst in his lungs, killing him at age 46.

Orwell had requested to be buried in accordance with the Anglican rite in the graveyard of the closest church to wherever he happened to die. The graveyards in central London had no space, and fearing that he might have to be cremated, against his wishes, his widow appealed to his friends to see whether any of them knew of a church with space in its graveyard. David Astor lived in Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire and negotiated with the vicar for Orwell to be interred in All Saints' Churchyard there, although he had no connection with the village. His gravestone bore the simple epitaph: "Here lies Eric Arthur Blair, born 25 June 1903, died 21 January 1950"; no mention is made on the gravestone of his more famous pen-name.

Orwell's son, Richard Blair, was raised by an aunt after his father's death. He maintains a low public profile, though he has occasionally given interviews about the few memories he has of his father. Richard Blair worked for many years as an agricultural agent for the British government.

In 1979 Sonia brought a High Court action against Harrison who had in the meantime transferred 75% of the company's voting stock to himself and had dissipated much of the value of the company. She was considered to have a strong case, but was becoming increasingly ill and eventually was persuaded to settle out of court on 2 November 1980. She died on 11 December 1980, aged 62.

Literary career[link]

During most of his career, Orwell was best known for his journalism, in essays, reviews, columns in newspapers and magazines and in his books of reportage: ''Down and Out in Paris and London'' (describing a period of poverty in these cities), ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' (describing the living conditions of the poor in northern England, and the class divide generally) and ''Homage to Catalonia''. According to Irving Howe, Orwell was "the best English essayist since Hazlitt, perhaps since Dr Johnson."

Modern readers are more often introduced to Orwell as a novelist, particularly through his enormously successful titles ''Animal Farm'' and ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. The former is often thought to reflect degeneration in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalinism; the latter, life under totalitarian rule. ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' is often compared to ''Brave New World'' by Aldous Huxley; both are powerful dystopian novels warning of a future world where the state machine exerts complete control over social life. In 1984, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' and Ray Bradbury's ''Fahrenheit 451'' were honoured with the Prometheus Award for their contributions to dystopian literature. In 2011 he received it again for ''Animal Farm''.

''Coming Up for Air'', his last novel before World War II is the most 'English' of his novels; alarums of war mingle with images of idyllic Thames-side Edwardian childhood of protagonist George Bowling. The novel is pessimistic; industrialism and capitalism have killed the best of Old England, and there were great, new external threats. In homely terms, Bowling posits the totalitarian hypotheses of Borkenau, Orwell, Silone and Koestler: "Old Hitler's something different. So's Joe Stalin. They aren't like these chaps in the old days who crucified people and chopped their heads off and so forth, just for the fun of it ... They're something quite new—something that's never been heard of before".

Literary influences[link]

In an autobiographical piece that Orwell sent to the editors of ''Twentieth Century Authors'' in 1940, he wrote: "The writers I care about most and never grow tired of are: Shakespeare, Swift, Fielding, Dickens, Charles Reade, Flaubert and, among modern writers, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence. But I believe the modern writer who has influenced me most is Somerset Maugham, whom I admire immensely for his power of telling a story straightforwardly and without frills." Elsewhere, Orwell strongly praised the works of Jack London, especially his book ''The Road''. Orwell's investigation of poverty in ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' strongly resembles that of Jack London's ''The People of the Abyss'', in which the American journalist disguises himself as an out-of-work sailor in order to investigate the lives of the poor in London. In his essay "Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" (1946) Orwell wrote: "If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put ''Gulliver's Travels'' among them.".

Other writers admired by Orwell included: Ralph Waldo Emerson, G. K. Chesterton, George Gissing, Graham Greene, Herman Melville, Henry Miller, Tobias Smollett, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and Yevgeny Zamyatin. He was both an admirer and a critic of Rudyard Kipling, praising Kipling as a gifted writer and a "good bad poet" whose work is "spurious" and "morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting," but undeniably seductive and able to speak to certain aspects of reality more effectively than more enlightened authors.

Orwell as literary critic[link]

Throughout his life Orwell continually supported himself as a book reviewer, writing works so long and sophisticated they have had an influence on literary criticism. He wrote in the conclusion to his 1940 essay on Charles Dickens,

George Woodcock suggested that the last two sentences characterised Orwell as much as his subject.

Reactions to Orwell's works[link]

Arthur Koestler mentioned Orwell's "uncompromising intellectual honesty [which] made him appear almost inhuman at times." Ben Wattenberg stated: "Orwell’s writing pierced intellectual hypocrisy wherever he found it." According to historian Piers Brendon, "Orwell was the saint of common decency who would in earlier days, said his BBC boss Rushbrook Williams, 'have been either canonised – or burnt at the stake'". However, Raymond Williams in Politics and Letters: Interviews with New Left Review describes Orwell as a "successful impersonation of a plain man who bumps into experience in an unmediated way and tells the truth about it." Christopher Norris declared that Orwell's "homespun empiricist outlook – his assumption that the truth was just there to be told in a straightforward common-sense way – now seems not merely naive but culpably self-deluding".

Orwell's work has taken a prominent place in the school literature curriculum in England, with ''Animal Farm'' a regular examination topic at the end of secondary education (GCSE), and ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' a topic for subsequent examinations below university level (A Levels). Alan Brown noted that this brings to the forefront questions about the political content of teaching practices. Study aids, in particular with potted biographies, might be seen to help propagate the Orwell myth so that as an embodiment of human values he is presented as a "trustworthy guide", while examination questions sometimes suggest a "right ways of answering" in line with the myth.

Historian John Rodden stated: "John Podhoretz did claim that if Orwell were alive today, he’d be standing with the neo-conservatives and against the Left. And the question arises, to what extent can you even begin to predict the political positions of somebody who’s been dead three decades and more by that time?"

In ''Orwell's Victory'', Christopher Hitchens argues, "In answer to the accusation of inconsistency Orwell as a writer was forever taking his own temperature. In other words, here was someone who never stopped testing and adjusting his intelligence".

John Rodden points out the "undeniable conservative features in the Orwell physiognomy" and remarks on how "to some extent Orwell facilitated the kinds of uses and abuses by the Right that his name has been put to. In other ways there has been the politics of selective quotation." Rodden refers to the essay "Why I Write", in which Orwell refers to the Spanish Civil War as being his "watershed political experience", saying "The Spanish War and other events in 1936–37, turned the scale. Thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and ''for'' Democratic Socialism as I understand it." (emphasis in original) Rodden goes on to explain how, during the McCarthy era, the introduction to the Signet edition of ''Animal Farm'', which sold more than 20 million copies, makes use of "the politics of ellipsis":

If the book itself, ''Animal Farm'', had left any doubt of the matter, Orwell dispelled it in his essay ''Why I Write'': 'Every line of serious work that I’ve written since 1936 has been written directly or indirectly against Totalitarianism ... dot, dot, dot, dot.' "For Democratic Socialism" is vaporised, just like Winston Smith did it at the Ministry of Truth, and that’s very much what happened beginning of the McCarthy era and just continued, Orwell being selectively quoted.

T.R. Fyvel wrote about Orwell: "His crucial experience ... was his struggle to turn himself into a writer, one which led through long periods of poverty, failure and humiliation, and about which he has written almost nothing directly. The sweat and agony was less in the slum-life than in the effort to turn the experience into literature."

Influence on language and writing[link]

In his essay ''Politics and the English Language'' (1946), Orwell wrote about the importance of precise and clear language, arguing that vague writing can be used as a powerful tool of political manipulation because it shapes the way we think. In that essay, Orwell provides six rules for writers:

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Andrew N. Rubin argues, "Orwell claimed that we should be attentive to how the use of language has limited our capacity for critical thought just as we should be equally concerned with the ways in which dominant modes of thinking have reshaped the very language that we use."

The adjective ''Orwellian'' connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past. In ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' Orwell described a totalitarian government that controlled thought by controlling language, making certain ideas literally unthinkable. Several words and phrases from ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' have entered popular language. ''Newspeak'' is a simplified and obfuscatory language designed to make independent thought impossible. ''Doublethink'' means holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. The ''Thought Police'' are those who suppress all dissenting opinion. ''Prolefeed'' is homogenised, manufactured superficial literature, film and music, used to control and indoctrinate the populace through docility. ''Big Brother'' is a supreme dictator who watches everyone.

Orwell may have been the first to use the term ''cold war'', in his essay, "You and the Atom Bomb", published in ''Tribune'', 19 October 1945. He wrote:

We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. James Burnham's theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications;— this is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a State which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of 'cold war' with its neighbours.

Personal life[link]

Childhood[link]

Jacintha Buddicom's account ''Eric & Us'' provides an insight into Blair's childhood. She quoted his sister Avril that "he was essentially an aloof, undemonstrative person" and said herself of his friendship with the Buddicoms "I do not think he needed any other friends beyond the schoolfriend he occasionally and appreciatively referred to as 'CC'". Cyril Connolly provides an account of Blair as a child in ''Enemies of Promise''. Years later, Blair mordantly recalled his prep school in the essay "Such, Such Were the Joys", claiming among other things that he "was made to study like a dog" to earn a scholarship, which he alleged was solely to enhance the school's prestige with parents. Jacintha Buddicom repudiated Orwell's schoolboy misery described in the essay, stating that "he was a specially happy child".

Connolly remarked of him as a schoolboy, "The remarkable thing about Orwell was that alone among the boys he was an intellectual and not a parrot for he thought for himself". At Eton, John Vaughan Wilkes, his former headmaster's son recalled, "...he was extremely argumentative—about anything—and criticising the masters and criticising the other boys.... We enjoyed arguing with him. He would generally win the arguments—or think he had anyhow." Roger Mynors concurs: "Endless arguments about all sorts of things, in which he was one of the great leaders. He was one of those boys who thought for himself...."

Blair liked to carry out practical jokes. Buddicom recalls him swinging from the luggage rack in a railway carriage like an orangutan to frighten a woman passenger out of the compartment. At Eton he played tricks on John Crace, his Master in College, among which was to enter a spoof advertisement in a College magazine implying pederasty. Gow, his tutor, said he "made himself as big a nuisance as he could" and "was a very unattractive boy". Later Blair was expelled from the crammer at Southwold for sending a dead rat as a birthday present to the town surveyor. In one of his ''As I Please'' essays he refers to a protracted joke when he answered an advertisement for a woman who claimed a cure for obesity.

Blair had an enduring interest in natural history which stemmed from his childhood. In letters from school he wrote about caterpillars and butterflies, and Buddicom recalls his keen interest in ornithology. He also enjoyed fishing and shooting rabbits, and conducting experiments as in cooking a hedgehog or shooting down a jackdaw from the Eton roof to dissect it. His zeal for scientific experiments extended to explosives—again Buddicom recalls a cook giving notice because of the noise. Later in Southwold his sister Avril recalled him blowing up the garden. When teaching he enthused his students with his nature-rambles both at Southwold and Hayes. His adult diaries are permeated with his observations on nature.

Relationships[link]

Buddicom and Blair lost touch shortly after he went to Burma, and she became unsympathetic towards him. She wrote that it was because of the letters he wrote complaining about his life, but an addendum to ''Eric & Us'' by Venables reveals that he may have lost sympathy through an incident which was at best a clumsy seduction.

Mabel Fierz, who later became his confidante, said "He used to say the one thing he wished in this world was that he'd been attractive to women. He liked women and had many girlfriends I think in Burma. He had a girl in Southwold and another girl in London. He was rather a womaniser, yet he was afraid he wasn't attractive."

Brenda Salkield (Southwold) preferred friendship to any deeper relationship and maintained a correspondence with Blair for many years, particularly as a sounding board for his ideas. She wrote "He was a great letter writer. Endless letters, And I mean when he wrote you a letter he wrote pages." His correspondence with Eleanor Jacques (London) was more prosaic, dwelling on a closer relationship and referring to past rendezvous or planning future ones in London and Burnham Beeches.

When Orwell was in the sanatorium in Kent his wife's friend Lydia Jackson visited. He invited her for a walk and out of sight "an awkward situation arose." Jackson was to be the most critical of Orwell's marriage to Eileen O'Shaughnessy but their later correspondence hints a complicity. Eileen at the time was more concerned about Orwell's closeness to Brenda Salkield. Orwell was to have an affair with his secretary at ''Tribune'' which caused Eileen much distress, and others have been mooted. In a letter to Ann Popham he wrote: 'I was sometimes unfaithful to Eileen, and I also treated her badly, and I think she treated me badly, too, at times, but it was a real marriage, in the sense that we had been through awful struggles together and she understood all about my work, etc.', Similarly he suggested to Celia Kirwan that they had both been unfaithful. There are several testaments that it was a well-matched and happy marriage

Orwell was very lonely after Eileen's death, and desperate for a wife, both as companion for himself and as mother for Richard. He proposed marriage to four women, and eventually Sonia Brownell accepted.

Religious views[link]

Orwell was a communicant member of the Church of England, he attended holy communion regularly, and allusions to Anglican life are made in his book ''A Clergyman's Daughter''. At the same time he found the church to be a "selfish...church of the landed gentry" with its establishment "out of touch" with the majority of its communicants and altogether a pernicious influence on public life. Moreover, Orwell expressed some skepticism about religion: "It seems rather mean to go to HC [Holy Communion] when one doesn't believe, but I have passed myself off for pious & there is nothing for it but to keep up with the deception." Yet, he was married according to the rites of the Church of England in both his first marriage at the church at Wallington, and in his second marriage on his deathbed in University College Hospital, and he left instructions that he was to receive an Anglican funeral. In their 1972 study, ''The Unknown Orwell'', the writers Peter Stansky and William Abrahams note that at Eton Blair displayed a "sceptical attitude" to Christian belief, and that: "Shaw's preface to his recently published ''Androcles and the Lion'' in which an account of the gospels is set forth, very different in tone from what one would be likely to hear from an Anglican clergyman" was "much more to Blair's own taste." Crick observed that Orwell displayed "a pronounced anti-Catholicism".

The ambiguity in his belief in religion mirrored the dichotomies between his public and private lives: Stephen Ingle wrote that it was as if the writer George Orwell "vaunted" his atheism while Eric Blair the individual retained "a deeply ingrained religiosity". Ingle later noted that Orwell did not accept the existence of an afterlife, believing in the finality of death while living and advocating a moral code based on Judeo-Christian beliefs.

Political views[link]

Orwell liked to provoke argument by challenging the status quo, but he was also a traditionalist with a love of old English values. He criticised and satirised, from the inside, the various social milieus in which he found himself – provincial town life in ''A Clergyman's Daughter''; middle-class pretention in ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying''; preparatory schools in ''Such Such were the Joys''; colonialism in ''Burmese Days'', and some socialist groups in ''The Road to Wigan Pier''. In his ''Adelphi'' days he described himself as a "Tory-anarchist".

In 1928, Orwell began his career as a professional writer in Paris. His first article, ''Censorship in England'', was an attempt to account for the 'extraordinary and illogical' suppression of plays and novels on the grounds of public decency, then practised in Britain. His own explanation was that the rise of the 'puritan middle class', who had stricter morals than the aristocracy, tightened the rules of censorship in the 19th century. Orwell's first article to be published in his home country, ''A Farthing Newspaper'', was a critique of the new French daily, the ''Ami de Peuple''. This paper was sold much more cheaply than most others, and was intended for ordinary people to read. However, Orwell pointed out that its proprietor François Coty also owned the right-wing dailies ''Le Figaro'' and ''Le Gaulois'', which the ''Ami de Peuple'' was supposedly competing against. Orwell suggested that cheap newspapers were no more than a vehicle for advertising and anti-leftist propaganda, and predicted that like India, France might soon see 'free newspapers' which would drive many legitimate dailies out of business.

The Spanish Civil War played the most important part in defining Orwell's socialism. He wrote to Cyril Connolly from Barcelona on 8 June 1937: "I have seen wonderful things and at last really believe in Socialism, which I never did before". Having witnessed the success of the anarcho-syndicalist communities, for example in Anarchist Catalonia, and the subsequent brutal suppression of the anarcho-syndicalists, anti-Stalin communist parties and revolutionaries by the Soviet Union-backed Communists, Orwell returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist and joined the Independent Labour Party, his card being issued on 13 June 1938. Although he was never a Trotskyist, he was strongly influenced by the Trotskyist and anarchist critiques of the Soviet regime, and by the anarchists' emphasis on individual freedom. In Part 2 of ''The Road to Wigan Pier'', published by the Left Book Club, Orwell stated: "a real Socialist is one who wishes – not merely conceives it as desirable, but actively wishes – to see tyranny overthrown". Orwell stated in "Why I Write" (1946): "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." Orwell was a proponent of a federal socialist Europe, a position outlined in his 1947 essay "Toward European Unity", which first appeared in ''Partisan Review''. According to biographer John Newsinger,

the other crucial dimension to Orwell's socialism was his recognition that the Soviet Union was not socialist. Unlike many on the left, instead of abandoning socialism once he discovered the full horror of Stalinist rule in the Soviet Union, Orwell abandoned the Soviet Union and instead remained a socialist—indeed he became more committed to the socialist cause than ever."

In his 1938 essay "Why I joined the Independent Labour Party", published in the ILP-affiliated ''New Leader'', Orwell wrote:

For some years past I have managed to make the capitalist class pay me several pounds a week for writing books against capitalism. But I do not delude myself that this state of affairs is going to last forever ... the only régime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a Socialist régime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer – that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a Socialist party.

Towards the end of the essay, he wrote: "I do not mean I have lost all faith in the Labour Party. My most earnest hope is that the Labour Party will win a clear majority in the next General Election."

Orwell was opposed to rearmament against Nazi Germany—but he changed his view after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the outbreak of the war. He left the ILP because of its opposition to the war and adopted a political position of "revolutionary patriotism". In December 1940 he wrote in ''Tribune'' (the Labour left's weekly): "We are in a strange period of history in which a revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary." During the war, Orwell was highly critical of the popular idea that an Anglo-Soviet alliance would be the basis of a post-war world of peace and prosperity. In 1942, commenting on journalist E. H. Carr's pro-Soviet views, Orwell stated: "all the appeasers, e.g. Professor E. H. Carr, have switched their allegiance from Hitler to Stalin."

On anarchism, Orwell wrote in ''The Road to Wigan Pier'': "I worked out an anarchistic theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always does more harm than the crime and the people can be trusted to behave decently if you will only let them alone." He continued however and argued that "it is always necessary to protect peaceful people from violence. In any state of society where crime can be profitable you have got to have a harsh criminal law and administer it ruthlessly."

In his reply (dated 15 November 1943) to an invitation from the Duchess of Atholl to speak for the British League for European Freedom, he stated that he didn't agree with their objectives. He admitted that what they said was "more truthful than the lying propaganda found in most of the press" but added that he could not "associate himself with an essentially Conservative body" that claimed to "defend democracy in Europe" but had "nothing to say about British imperialism". His closing paragraph stated: "I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence in this country."

Orwell joined the staff of ''Tribune'' as literary editor, and from then until his death, was a left-wing (though hardly orthodox) Labour-supporting democratic socialist. On 1 September 1944, about the Warsaw Uprising, Orwell expressed in ''Tribune'' his hostility against the influence of the alliance with the USSR over the allies: "Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Do not imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the sovietic regime, or any other regime, and then suddenly return to honesty and reason. Once a whore, always a whore." According to Newsinger, although Orwell "was always critical of the 1945–51 Labour government's moderation, his support for it began to pull him to the right politically. This did not lead him to embrace conservatism, imperialism or reaction, but to defend, albeit critically, Labour reformism." Between 1945 and 1947, with A. J. Ayer and Bertrand Russell, he contributed a series of articles and essays to ''Polemic'', a short-lived British "Magazine of Philosophy, Psychology, and Aesthetics" edited by the ex-Communist Humphrey Slater.

Writing in the spring of 1945 a long essay titled "Antisemitism in Britain", for the ''Contemporary Jewish Record'', Orwell stated that anti-Semitism was on the increase in Britain, and that it was "irrational and will not yield to arguments". He argued that it would be useful to discover why anti-Semites could "swallow such absurdities on one particular subject while remaining sane on others". He wrote: "For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. ... Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own anti-Semitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness." In ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', written shortly after the war, Orwell portrayed the Party as enlisting anti-Semitic passions against their enemy, Goldstein.

Orwell publicly defended P.G. Wodehouse against charges of being a Nazi sympathiser, a defence based on Wodehouse's lack of interest in and ignorance of politics.

The British intelligence group Special Branch maintained a file on Orwell for more than 20 years of his life. The dossier, published by The National Archives, mentions that according to one investigator, Orwell had "advanced Communist views and several of his Indian friends say that they have often seen him at Communist meetings". MI5, the intelligence department of the Home Office, noted: "It is evident from his recent writings – 'The Lion and the Unicorn' – and his contribution to Gollancz's symposium ''The Betrayal of the Left'' that he does not hold with the Communist Party nor they with him."

Social interactions[link]

Orwell was noted for very close and enduring friendships with a few friends, but these were generally people with a similar background or with a similar level of literary ability. Ungregarious, he was out of place in a crowd and his discomfort was exacerbated when he was outside his own class. Though representing himself as a spokesman for the common man, he often appeared out of place with real working people. His brother-in-law Humphrey Dakin, a "Hail fellow, well met" type, who took him to a local pub in Leeds, said that he was told by the landlord: "Don't bring that bugger in here again". Adrian Fierz commented "He wasn't interested in racing or greyhounds or pub crawling or shove ha'penny. He just did not have much in common with people who did not share his intellectual interests". Awkwardness attended many of his encounters with working-class representatives, as with Pollitt and McNair. but his courtesy and good manners were often commented on. Jack Common observed on meeting him for the first time, "Right away manners, and more than manners—breeding—showed through".

In his tramping days, he did domestic work for a time. His extreme politeness was recalled by a member of the family he worked for; she declared that the family referred to him as "Laurel" after the film comedian. With his gangling figure and awkwardness, Orwell's friends often saw him as a figure of fun. Geoffrey Gorer commented "He was awfully likely to knock things off tables, trip over things. I mean, he was a gangling, physically badly co-ordinated young man. I think his feelings that even the inanimate world was against him..." When he shared a flat with Heppenstall and Sayer, he was treated in a patronising manner by the younger men. At the BBC, in the 1940s, "everybody would pull his leg", and Spender described him as having real entertainment value "like, as I say, watching a Charlie Chaplin movie". A friend of Eileen's reminisced about her tolerance and humour, often at Orwell's expense.

One biography of Orwell accused him of having had an authoritarian streak. In Burma, he struck out at a Burmese boy who while "fooling around" with his friends had "accidentally bumped into him" at a station, with the result that Orwell "fell heavily" down some stairs. One of his former pupils recalled being beaten so hard he could not sit down for a week. When sharing a flat with Orwell, Heppenstall came home late one night in an advanced stage of loud inebriation. The upshot was that Heppenstall ended up with a bloody nose and was locked in a room. When he complained, Orwell hit him a crack across the legs with a shooting stick and Heppenstall then had to defend himself with a chair. Years later, after Orwell's death, Heppenstall wrote a dramatic account of the incident called "The Shooting Stick" and Mabel Fierz confirmed that Heppenstall came to her in a sorry state the following day.

However, Orwell got on well with young people. The pupil he beat considered him the best of teachers, and the young recruits in Barcelona tried to drink him under the table—though without success. His nephew recalled Uncle Eric laughing louder than anyone in the cinema at a Charlie Chaplin film.

In the wake of his most famous works, he attracted many uncritical hangers-on, but many others who sought him found him aloof and even dull. With his soft voice, he was sometimes shouted down or excluded from discussions. At this time, he was severely ill; it was wartime or the austerity period after it; during the war his wife suffered from depression; and after her death he was lonely and unhappy. In addition to that, he always lived frugally and seemed unable to care for himself properly. As a result of all this, people found his circumstances bleak. Some, like Michael Ayrton, called him "Gloomy George", but others developed the idea that he was a "secular saint".

Lifestyle[link]

Orwell was a heavy smoker, rolling his own cigarettes from strong shag tobacco, in spite of his bronchial condition. He undermined his health with a penchant for the rugged life which often put him in cold and damp situations both in the long term as in Catalonia and Jura, and short term, for example in motorcycling in the rain and a shipwreck of his own creation. His love of strong tea was legendary—he had Fortnum & Mason's tea brought to him in Catalonia and in 1946 published "A Nice Cup of Tea" on how to make it. He appreciated English beer, taken regularly and moderately, despised drinkers of lager and wrote about an imagined, ideal pub in his 1946 newspaper article "The Moon Under Water". Not being particular about food, he enjoyed the wartime "Victory Pie" extolled canteen food at the BBC and once ate the cat's dinner by mistake. However he preferred traditional English dishes such as roast beef and kippers and reports of his Islington days refer to the cosy afternoon tea table.

His dress sense was unpredictable and usually casual. In Southwold he had the best cloth from the local tailor, but was equally happy in his tramping outfit. His attire in the Spanish Civil War, along with his size 12 boots was a source of amusement. David Astor described him as looking like a prep school master, while according to the Special Branch dossier, Orwell's tendency of clothing himself "in Bohemian fashion" revealed that the author was "a Communist".

Orwell's confusing approach to matters of social decorum—on the one hand expecting a working class guest to dress for dinner, and on the other hand slurping tea out of a saucer at the BBC canteen—helped stoke his reputation as an English eccentric.

Biographies[link]

Orwell's will requested that no biography of him be written, and his wife Sonia Brownell repelled every attempt by those who tried to persuade her to let them write about him. Various recollections and interpretations were published in the 1950s and 1960s but Sonia saw the 1968 ''Collected Works'' as the record of his life. She did appoint Malcolm Muggeridge as official biographer, but later biographers have seen this as deliberate spoiling as Muggeridge eventually gave up the work. In 1973 American authors Stansky and Williams produced an unauthorised account of his early years which inevitably lacked Sonia Brownell's input. She then commissioned Bernard Crick, a left-wing professor of politics at the University of London to complete a biography and asked all Orwell's friends to co-operate. Crick collated a considerable amount of material in his work which was published in 1980, but his questioning of the literal truth of Orwell's first-person writings led to conflict with Sonia who tried unsuccessfully to suppress the book. Crick concentrated on the facts of Orwell's life rather than his character, and as a professor of politics presented primarily a political perspective on Orwell's life and work.

After Sonia Brownell's death many more works were produced in the 1980s with 1984 being a particularly fruitful year for Orwelliana. These included collections of reminiscences by Coppard and Crick and Stephen Wadhams.

In 1991 a biography was produced by Michael Shelden, an American Professor of Literature. Shelden was more concerned with the literary nature of Orwell’s work, seeking explanations for Orwell's character and treating his first person writings as autobiographical. Shelden introduced several new pieces of information correcting some of the errors and omissions in Crick's earlier work. Shelden attributed to Orwell an obsessive belief in his failure and inadequacy.

Peter Davison's production of the ''Complete Works of George Orwell'', completed in 2000 put most of the Orwell Archive in the public domain. Jeffrey Meyers, a prolific American biographer, was first to take advantage of this and produced a work that was more willing to investigate the darker side of Orwell and question the saintly image. ''Why Orwell Matters'' was published by Christopher Hitchens in 2002.

In 2003, the centenary of Orwell's birth resulted in the two most up-to-date biographies by Gordon Bowker and D. J. Taylor, both academics and writers in the United Kingdom. Taylor notes the stage management which surrounds much of Orwell's behaviour, and Bowker highlights the essential sense of decency which he considers to have been Orwell's main driver.

Bibliography[link]

;Novels

1934 – ''Burmese Days''

1935 – ''A Clergyman's Daughter''

1936 – ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying''

1939 – ''Coming Up for Air''

1945 – ''Animal Farm''

1949 – ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''

;Books based on personal experiences While the substance of many of Orwell's novels, particularly ''Burmese Days'', is drawn from his personal experiences, the following are works presented as narrative documentaries, rather than being fictionalised.

1933 – ''Down and Out in Paris and London''

1937 – ''The Road to Wigan Pier''

1938 – ''Homage to Catalonia''

Notes[link]

References[link]

Anderson, Paul (ed). ''Orwell in Tribune: 'As I Please' and Other Writings''. Methuen/Politico's 2006. ISBN 1-84275-155-7

Bounds, Philip. ''Orwell and Marxism: The Political and Cultural Thinking of George Orwell''. I.B. Tauris. 2009. ISBN 1-84511-807-3

Bowker, Gordon. ''George Orwell''. Little Brown. 2003. ISBN 0-316-86115-4

Buddicom, Jacintha. ''Eric & Us''. Finlay Publisher. 2006. ISBN 0-9553708-0-9

Caute, David. ''Dr. Orwell and Mr. Blair'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-81438-9

Crick, Bernard. ''George Orwell: A Life''. Penguin. 1982. ISBN 0-14-005856-7

Flynn, Nigel. ''George Orwell''. The Rourke Corporation, Inc. 1990. ISBN 0-86593-018-X

Hitchens, Christopher. ''Why Orwell Matters''. Basic Books. 2003. ISBN 0-465-03049-1

Hollis, Christopher. ''A Study of George Orwell: The Man and His Works''. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co. 1956.

Larkin, Emma. ''Secret Histories: Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop''. Penguin. 2005. ISBN 1-59420-052-1

Lee, Robert A, ''Orwell's Fiction''. University of Notre Dame Press, 1969. LC 74-75151

Leif, Ruth Ann, ''Homage to Oceania. The Prophetic Vision of George Orwell''. Ohio State U.P. [1969]

Meyers, Jeffery. ''Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation''. W.W.Norton. 2000. ISBN 0-393-32263-7

Newsinger, John. ''Orwell's Politics''. Macmillan. 1999. ISBN 0-333-68287-4

Rodden, John (ed.) ''The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell''. Cambridge. 2007. ISBN 978-0-521-67507-9

Shelden, Michael. ''Orwell: The Authorized Biography''. HarperCollins. 1991. ISBN 0-06-016709-2

Smith, D. & Mosher, M. ''Orwell for Beginners''. 1984. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative.

Taylor, D. J. ''Orwell: The Life''. Henry Holt and Company. 2003. ISBN 0-8050-7473-2

West, W. J. ''The Larger Evils''. Edinburgh: Canongate Press. 1992. ISBN 0-86241-382-6 (Nineteen Eighty-Four – The truth behind the satire.)

West, W. J. (ed.) ''George Orwell: The Lost Writings''. New York: Arbor House. 1984. ISBN 0-87795-745-2

Williams, Raymond, ''Orwell'', Fontana/Collins, 1971

Wood, James "A Fine Rage." The New Yorker. 2009. 85(9):54.

Woodcock, George. ''The Crystal Spirit''. Little Brown. 1966. ISBN 1-55164-268-9

External links[link]

George Orwell – Penguin Books official website for George Orwell

George Orwell archive at the Marxists Internet Archive

The Orwell Diaries: a daily extract from Orwell's diary from the same date seventy years before

Blair, Eric Arthur (George Orwell) (1903–1950) at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

George Orwell at the BBC

Works by George Orwell (public domain in Canada)

George Orwell articles at Byliner

''Booknotes'' interview with Jeffrey Meyers on ''Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation'', 11 March 2001.

George Orwell plaques recorded on openplaques.org

Category:1903 births Category:1950 deaths Category:Administrators in British Burma Category:Anglo-Indian people Category:Anti-fascists Category:Blue plaques Category:British colonial police officers Category:British people of the Spanish Civil War Category:Deaths from tuberculosis Category:Democratic socialists Category:English Anglicans Category:English essayists Category:English memoirists Category:English novelists Category:English people of French descent Category:English people of Scottish descent Category:English poets Category:English political writers Category:English socialists Category:Historians of fascism Category:Infectious disease deaths in England Category:Language creators Category:People educated at Eton College Category:People educated at Wellington College, Berkshire Category:People from Bihar Category:Prometheus Award winning authors Category:Shooting survivors Category:Pseudonymous writers Category:English journalists Category:Postmodern writers Category:English anti-communists Category:French-language writers Category:English booksellers

ar:جورج أورويل an:George Orwell ast:George Orwell az:Corc Oruell bn:জর্জ অরওয়েল zh-min-nan:George Orwell be:Джордж Оруэл be-x-old:Джордж Орўэл bg:Джордж Оруел bs:George Orwell br:George Orwell ca:George Orwell cs:George Orwell cy:George Orwell da:George Orwell de:George Orwell et:George Orwell el:Τζορτζ Όργουελ es:George Orwell eo:George Orwell eu:George Orwell fa:جورج اورول fr:George Orwell fy:George Orwell ga:George Orwell gv:George Orwell gd:George Orwell gl:George Orwell ko:조지 오웰 hy:Ջորջ Օրվել hi:जॉर्ज ऑरवेल hr:George Orwell io:George Orwell ilo:George Orwell id:George Orwell os:Оруэлл, Джордж is:George Orwell it:George Orwell he:ג'ורג' אורוול jv:George Orwell kn:ಜಾರ್ಜ್‌ ಆರ್ವೆಲ್‌ ka:ჯორჯ ორუელი ku:George Orwell mrj:Джордж Оруэлл la:Georgius Orwell lv:Džordžs Orvels lb:George Orwell lt:George Orwell hu:George Orwell mk:Џорџ Орвел ml:ജോര്‍ജ്ജ് ഓര്‍വെല്‍ mr:जॉर्ज ऑर्वेल arz:جورج اورويل mzn:جورج ارول ms:George Orwell mn:Жорж Орвелл nah:George Orwell nl:George Orwell ja:ジョージ・オーウェル no:George Orwell nn:George Orwell oc:George Orwell uz:George Orwell pms:George Orwell nds:George Orwell pl:George Orwell pt:George Orwell ro:George Orwell qu:George Orwell ru:Джордж Оруэлл sq:George Orwell scn:George Orwell simple:George Orwell sk:George Orwell sl:George Orwell szl:George Orwell sr:Џорџ Орвел sh:Džordž Orvel fi:George Orwell sv:George Orwell tl:George Orwell ta:ஜார்ஜ் ஆர்வெல் te:జార్జ్ ఆర్వెల్ th:จอร์จ ออร์เวลล์ tg:Ҷорҷ Оруэлл tr:George Orwell uk:Джордж Орвелл ur:جارج اورول vec:George Orwell vi:George Orwell yo:George Orwell zh-yue:佐治奧威爾 diq:George Orwell zh:乔治·奥威尔

Name	Method Man
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Clifford Smith
Alias	Meth, Tical, Johnny Blaze, Methtical, Shakwon, Iron Lung, Hot Nikkels, MZA, John J
Birth date	April 01, 1971
Birth place	Staten Island, New York City, United States
Genre	Hip hop
Occupation	Rapper, actor
Years active	1990–present (rapping)1995–present (acting)
Label	Def Jam
Associated acts	Wu-Tang Clan, Redman, Erick Sermon, LL Cool J, The Notorious B.I.G., DMX, Xzibit, Shyheim
Website	}}

Clifford Smith (born April 1, 1971), better known by his stage name Method Man, is an American hip hop artist, record producer, actor and member of the hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He took his stage name from the 1979 film ''The Fearless Young Boxer'', also known as ''Method Man''. He is one half of the rap duo Method Man & Redman. He won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By" with Mary J. Blige. In 2007, the writers of About.com placed him on their list of the Top 50 MCs of Our Time (1987–2007).

Method Man appeared in the motion pictures ''Belly'', ''How High'', ''Garden State'' as well as a minor role in ''The Wackness''. More recently, he appeared as a crewman in George Lucas' film ''Red Tails''. On television, he and hip-hop collaborator Redman co-starred on the short-lived Fox sitcom ''Method & Red'', and he had a recurring role on HBO's ''Oz'' as Tug Daniels and as Calvin "Cheese" Wagstaff on the acclaimed HBO drama series ''The Wire''.

Early life[link]

Born in Staten Island, New York, on April 1 , 1971, Clifford Smith divided his childhood between his father's Long Island residence and his mother's home in the Park Hill section of Staten Island aka Killa Hill. He has two sisters, Terri and Missy.

Rapping career[link]

1992–96: ''Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)'' and ''Tical''[link]

As Wu-Tang Clan ascended to hip hop stardom, Method Man was always one of the most visible members of the collective. He was one of only two members to get a solo song on the group's debut album ''Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers'' and he was the first to release a solo album under the Clan's unusual contract which allowed its members to release albums under any record label (Method chose to sign with rap label Def Jam). Method Man's solo debut, ''Tical'' (1994) was critically acclaimed and well received, entering the American charts at #4 and eventually selling in excess of one million copies. That album featured the hit single "All I Need" which was later remixed featuring Mary J Blige, which won a Grammy "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need,"). during this time Method Man also became close friends with The Notorious B.I.G., and was the only guest rapper featured on his debut album ''Ready to Die''. He was also featured on Spice 1's album "AmeriKKKa's Nightmare" on the track "Hard 2 Kill". In 1995, he was also featured on "Got the Flava" off Showbiz and A.G.'s album ''Goodfellas''. In 1996, Method Man appeared on Tupac Shakur's album ''All Eyez on Me'', on the song "Got My Mind Made Up" alongside his rhyme partner Redman, The Dogg Pound (Daz and Kurupt) and Inspectah Deck (Rebel INS), whose verse did not make the released album version (although his nickname "Rebel INS" can be heard as the song fades).

1997–98: ''Wu-Tang Forever'' and ''Tical 2000: Judgement Day''[link]

On June 3, 1997 the Wu-Tang Clan released their Grammy-nominated multiplatinum double CD ''Wu-Tang Forever'', the long-awaited follow up to ''36 Chambers''. The album has sold over 8.3 million copies to date worldwide.

His second solo album was ''Tical 2000: Judgement Day'', released in 1998, which was heavily influenced by the apocalypse theories surrounding the forthcoming end of the millennium, and which featured myriad guest appearances from his fellow Wu-Tang MCs, proving for the world that Method Man is in fact America's most blunted(with the help of Red Man). The album was certified double platinum. Other guest appearances include Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, D'Angelo, Chris Rock, Mobb Deep, Redman, and brief cameos from Russell Simmons, Bishop Don "Magic" Juan, Janet Jackson, and Donald Trump. The album sold better than his first fueled by the party track "Judgment Day" and the D'Angelo collaboration "Break Ups 2 Make Ups", earning Platinum and Gold certifications in the U.S. and Canada respectively. Reviews for the album were mixed and its long runtime and abundance of intermittent comedy skits were widely criticized. Producers on this album included True Master, 4th Disciple and the RZA.

1999–2000: ''Blackout!'' (with Redman)[link]

Method Man was part of the very successful Hard Knock Life Tour with Jay-Z, Redman, Ja Rule, and DMX. During this tour, Method Man & Redman recorded ''Blackout!'', a light-hearted, bass-heavy, profanity-laced, party record with an EPMD-evoking emphasis on funky beats and the mischievous wit and cool flows and good rhythm of the two MCs. The album reached platinum status quickly, both in the U.S. and Canada, fueled by "Da Rockwilder", "Cereal Killa", "1, 2, 1, 2", "Tear It Off" and "Y.O.U.". This album also featured three previously released tracks on which the two collaborated.

Their success would lead the duo on to star in movies and TV shows, become product spokespersons and household names, but also associated them with marijuana use in the media. The most immediate results of their success was their co-starring roles in the major motion picture film ''How High'', their endorsement deal for ''Right Guard'', Redman's starring role in ''Seed of Chucky'' and a short-lived sitcom on Fox Television entitled ''Method & Red''.

2000–04: ''The W'', ''Iron Flag'', and ''Tihkal 0: The Prequel''[link]

The Wu-Tang Clan released ''The W'' on November 21, 2000 and Iron Flag on December 18, 2001. ''The W'' received both critical and commercial success for the group, while ''Iron Flag'' did receive some but not to the effect of ''The W''. The efforts earned two more platinum plaques for the Wu-Tang Clan.

In 2004, Meth released his third solo album ''Tical 0: The Prequel'', which featured the hit party single "What's Happenin'" with Busta Rhymes. Hip hop critics voiced their displeasure with the album, many agreeing that ''Tical 0'' felt like generic party rap and featured too many mainstream guests, detracting from his own performances. Regardless, this album sold reasonably well and was certified gold record by the RIAA relatively quickly, but would not see the platinum success of his previous solo releases. There was trouble even before the album's release when Method apparently complained to the press about excessive interference from Def Jam over the album's beats (Meth supposedly desired more input from Wu-Tang leader RZA). On its release, many fans and critics were taken aback by its strong "mainstream" or "commercial" sound, highlighted by the guest appearances of pop-rap stars like Missy Elliott and P. Diddy, two artists that are involved with much different facets of rap music.

P. Diddy was one of the executive producers for the album, although Meth later voiced his displeasure with the final product. "On the third LP, it was suggested (by Def Jam) to bring in Harve Pierre and P. Diddy. Who am I to argue? Puff knows how to sell some records. But that wasn't the direction to go in, and I know that."

2006–07: ''4:21... The Day After''[link]

Method Man's fourth album, entitled ''4:21: The Day After'' was released in August 2006 with a star lineup of producers featuring Havoc, Erick Sermon, Scott Storch, Allah Mathematics, Mr. Porter, and, most importantly to Meth, RZA. This time around, a more focused Method Man went back to his hip hop roots and both hip hop fans and the media took notice. He did an interview on the ItsHipHop.Tv. Despite this being one of Meth's strongest solo efforts to date, the album failed to do well commercially due to it having no single or video, which Method Man has held discontent towards his own label for. However, he has been touring strongly all over the world to promote the album, and has appeared onstage with fellow Wu-Tang member Inspectah Deck, as well as New York up and comers Saigon, and Gat Murdah. Meth contributed various reasons for the problems between him and his label, Def Jam. While he puts most of the blame on personal agendas in the Def Jam offices, Meth did take some blame, himself, for giving into his record label.

In early May 2007, Method Man's camp leaked the street single "New York New York" which became a popular track on the internet.

2007–10: ''Blackout! 2''[link]

On March 27, 2007, Redman confirmed on BET's Rap City: Tha Bassment that the sequel to ''How High'', ''How High 2'', is currently being written.

In an April 10, 2007 Onion AV Club interview, Redman hinted that there would be a second collaborative album with Method Man, with work beginning in midsummer or early September.

In early 2008, a remake of the Smoothe da Hustler and Trigger tha Gambler classic ''Broken Language'' was released to the internet by the duo entitled ''Broken Language 2008'', fueling rumors of a ''Blackout!'' sequel coming soon. This rumor was further fueled by the duo while performing in Gainesville, Florida at the University of Florida. A ''Blackout! 2'' LP was scheduled for a December 9, 2008 release but was recently pushed back to the first quarter of 2009, with a new release date on May 19. Bun B has confirmed that he will guest star on ''Blackout! 2'' – in April 2009, a single has been released named ''City Lights'', produced by Nasty Kutt Also producers such as Erick Sermon, Rockwilder and Pete Rock have announced their presence on the album.

The duo has finished their ''Still High'' tour with Termanalogy, the Alchemist, and Evidence of Dilated Peoples.

2011–present: ''Crystal Meth''[link]

''Crystal Meth'' is Method Man's upcoming fifth studio album. The album has no confirmed release date. ''The Crystal Meth'' was first announced before Method Man began working on his and Redman's sophomore collaboration album, ''Blackout! 2''. In the liner notes of that album, it was given a scheduled release date for 2009. The album, however, was further postponed until it was later mentioned in an MTV interview it would be released in early 2010. no update on the album's progress or release date has been made. At a concert on the 23 of December 2010 Method Man told the crowd to look for his album in March 2011. However the album was pushed back to an unknown release date.

In a recent interview with The Come Up Show following a recent performance in Canada in April 2011, Method Man replied with this regarding his current 'weed-loving' image:"When you get older and you've got kids and your kids are going to school and you know [their] teachers...and they see how active you are and concerned [you are] with your kids' education or well being, it's hard to sit there and be taken seriously if people are always talking about he's always high...which is totally not the case," he said. "When I first came out, I was young, we were doing our thing, we smoked a lot...and we didn't care if the world knew. Now, I have to use more discretion because of my kids. This is not for me; everything I do is for them now, so I use a bit more discretion and I don't put weed as a forefront any more."

On October 5, 2011, a new single from Method Man, titled "World Gone Sour (The Lost Kids)", was released on iTunes. Recently, he confirmed that the album will come out next year and will have the usual line-up of producers including RZA, Rockwilder, Erick Sermon, 3rd Digala of Digem Tracks and some other new underground producers he's begun to work with. He also expressed a desire to work with Odd Future frontman Tyler, The Creator. It was recently announced via Facebook that Crystal Meth will be his last album & to be fully produced by RZA.

Acting career[link]

In the early 2000s Method Man began a career in acting. He has had recurring roles in critically acclaimed television shows such as HBO's ''Oz'' as Tug Daniels, HBO's ''The Wire'' in which he plays Prop Joe's nephew Cheese, ''The Twilight Zone'' and ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation''. He and Redman hosted a pilot on MTV called ''Stung''. He has made numerous appearances as himself on TV shows such as ''Mind of Mencia'' and ''Chappelle's Show''.

Method Man portrays Drops on ''CSI'', a wealthy Las Vegas party promoter who clashes with the CSI team, specifically investigator Nick Stokes, in their investigations involving his clubs or entourage. His first appearance on CSI as ''Drops'' was in the 2006 episode "Poppin' Tags". He resumed the role in the 2007 episode "Big Shots" and again in the 2008 episode "Drops Out".

His first prominent role came in 1998 with the film ''Belly'' along with fellow rappers Nas and DMX. He has since added many credits to his name, including roles in the films ''Garden State'', ''One Eight Seven'', and many others, with starring roles in the feature films such as ''How High'' and ''Soul Plane''. On March 27, 2007 Redman confirmed on BET's show ''Rap City'' that the sequel to ''How High'' was being written. The script for ''How High 2'' is being written by Dustin Lee Abraham of ''CSI'', who also wrote the first movie. In 2005 Method Man also had a cameo in the horror movie ''Venom'', where he played a deputy who shortly into the movie is killed. He appears in the 2008 movies ''The Wackness'' and also, ''Meet the Spartans''.

Method Man stars in the episode "Snitch" of ''Law & Order SVU'' as the main antagonist. The episode was first broadcast December 4, 2007.

Method Man has made an appearance in the ''Def Jam'' series of video games. In ''Fight for NY'' he voiced Blaze, one of the main characters. In ''Icon'', he voiced Gooch, a major character in the storyline. In Underground, He voiced Meth, one of the major characters. He made a guest appearance in the music video for the 2003 "If I Ain't Got You" by Alicia Keys, where he played the role of her boyfriend. He also appeared in Beanie Sigel's music video "Feel It in the Air", where Method Man played an undercover cop leading an operation against Sigel.

Method Man has fallen back from pursuing more acting roles after the situation with his sitcom on Fox left a bad taste in his mouth, and now mostly just acts if the project is being handled by a friend of his, as was the case with ''CSI'' and ''The Wire''. He also played an arsonist and a wealthy executive as well as main antagonist in an episode of the fox TV show The Good Guys.

Method Man appears as a hip hop business mogul in an episode of ''Burn Notice''.

Method man had a cameo appearance in the 1997 film ''Cop Land'' as a physically violent fleeing criminal that throws Peter Berg's character off of a New York rooftop. Method Man has also appeared in the TV drama ''Wonderland'', as a patient in a mental hospital.

Method man plays a small role in the 2011 film "The Sitter" starring Jonah Hill. In 2012 he played crewman "Sticks" in George Lucas' movie ''Red Tails'' about the Tuskegee airmen.

Other ventures[link]

Method Man appeared in the 1995 documentary entitled The Show. There is a memorable scene in which Method Man, on a train in Japan, gets into an argument with U-God and Ghostface Killah, over camera time, radio interviews, and clothing mishaps.

In 2006, Method Man appeared on the MTV reality game show ''Yo Momma'' in the first episode of Season 1.

Method Man is the first of the Wu-Tang Clan to produce a series of eponymous graphic novels for Hachette Book Group USA's imprint Grand Central Publishing (to be followed by GZA and Ghostface Killah).

Personal life[link]

He became engaged to his wife in 1999 and they married in 2001. He has three children: two sons (born in 1996 and 2001), and one daughter (born in 1997). Method Man also has collabed with Rochester rapper "Dale Mahoney" on his project "Jordans&Drugs;" in 2012.

Legal issues[link]

On Thursday May 17, 2007 Method Man was arrested in New York City on marijuana charges. His Mercedes-Benz convertible was pulled over at the Battery Tunnel en route to Manhattan, and when he rolled his window down the officer noticed a strong smell of marijuana. "It was like something out of ''Cheech & Chong''. He rolls down the window and the smoke would choke a horse," a source later said. The arresting officer said he noticed two blunts and a plastic bag with more marijuana in plain view. Upon further inspection more marijuana was found under the driver's seat. The arrest was made at about 10 P.M. Thursday night near the Battery Tunnel toll booths on Hamilton Ave. in Carroll Gardens. He was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana, criminal possession of marijuana, operating a motor vehicle under the influence and driving an uninspected motor vehicle. He later made many public service appearances to try to make up for it, most notably at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn.

On October 5, 2009, Method Man was arrested at his home in Staten Island for income tax violations. He was accused of failing to file income tax returns for the state of New York between 2004 and 2007 and owes nearly $33,000 in taxes. On June 28, 2010, Method Man plead guilty to tax evasion and was sentenced to a conditional discharge and paid a $106,000.00 fine.

Controversies[link]

Wu-Tang management[link]

In 2003, Method Man criticized Oli "Power" Grant and Mitchell "Divine" Diggs, the managers of the Wu-Tang business. "Number 1 on my shit list right now is Divine from Wu-Tang management. He took something major from me that he had no intention of giving back." Divine is multiplatinum record producer RZA's brother who along with Oli "Power" Grant took over the business end of Wu-Tang around 1997.

Aside from the financial issues, Method Man was unhappy with the decision to bring Wu-Tang into the fashion world for a brief period of time with Wu-Wear, despite the brand being a major money-maker for the group. "When Wu-Wear started making shoes and sneakers and pants, it was shoddy material. I never rocked that shit."

Wendy Williams[link]

In 2006 Method Man had a highly personal and highly publicized conflict with TV talk show host Wendy Williams on ''The Breakdown'', an internet show on ONLOQ.com. Williams talked on air about Method Man's wife having cancer, which was something he had wanted to keep very private and even her own family members had not yet known about. He said that people who lived next door to him didn't even know, but Williams had dug it up and made it public over the radio. Because of this leaked information, Method Man and his wife had many problems.

Williams also reported rumors that Method Man had even been having an affair with his wife's doctor. Method Man first heard of this while in recording sessions in Los Angeles.

}}

Sean Combs[link]

During a concert in 2006, Method Man criticized Diddy's decisions on the posthumous The Notorious B.I.G. ''Duets: The Final Chapter'' album, saying that Biggie never would have worked with some of the subpar rappers. "They got niggas on that album Big would have never rocked with," Meth said of the album. "Musically, I ain't fuckin' with Puff Daddy". He also brought up the fact that he was the only other rapper that Biggie chose to have on his debut album ''Ready To Die''. He was featured on the track "The What".

Previously, Diddy had been one of the executive producers for Method Man's 2004 album ''Tical 0: The Prequel'', to which Meth later voiced his displeasure on the final product. From then on, he focused on production from within the clan and its closely tied collaborators.

Fox Television[link]

He starred in a Fox sitcom called ''Method & Red'' in late 2004, however after only a short time on the air the show was put on hiatus and never returned. Method Man later complained in the press about Fox's influence on the show's style, claiming that "there's been too much compromise on our side and not enough on their side" and bemoaning the network's decision to add a laugh track. Before the show even aired for the first time, he was telling fans not to bother watching it. He told the newspaper:

Discography[link]

; Studio albums

''Tical'' (1994)

''Tical 2000: Judgement Day'' (1998)

''Tical 0: The Prequel'' (2004)

''4:21... The Day After'' (2006)

''Crystal Meth'' (2012)

; Collaboration albums

''Blackout!'' (with Redman) (1999)

''Blackout! 2'' (with Redman) (2009)

''Wu-Massacre'' (with Ghostface Killah and Raekwon) (2010)

''Blackout! 3'' (with Redman) (2012)

Filmography[link]

Method Man filmography

Year	! Film	! Role
1996	''The Great White Hype''	As himself
1997	''Cop Land''
1997	''One Eight Seven''
1998	Belly (film)>Belly''
rowspan="2"	1999	Black and White (1999 film)>Black and White''
''Big Daddy (1999 film)	Big Daddy''	Man #7
2000	Backstage (2000 film)>Backstage''
2001	''How High''
2002	Brown Sugar (2002 film)>Brown Sugar''
2003	''Volcano High''
rowspan="4"	2004	''My Baby's Daddy''
''Garden State (film)	Garden State''	Diego
''Soul Plane''	Muggsy
''Scary Movie 3''	Gangsta 4
2005	Venom (2005 film)>Venom''
2006	''Hood of Horror''
rowspan="3"	2008	''Meet the Spartans''
''The Wackness''	Percy
"Burn Notice"	Valentine
rowspan="5"	2010	Sinners and Saints (2010 film)>Sinners and Saints''
''Red Tails''	Sticks
''The Mortician 3-D''	Mortician
''The Good Guys (2010 TV series)	The Good Guys''	Kenny Griffin (Season 1 Episode 14 – Old Dogs)
''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation''	Drops (Season 11 Episode 2 – Pool Shark)
	2011	''The Sitter''
	2012	''How High 2''

References[link]

External links[link]

Category:1971 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from New York City Category:African-American film actors Category:African American rappers Category:Def Jam Recordings artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Members of the Nation of Gods and Earths Category:People from Staten Island Category:Rappers from New York City Category:Wu-Tang Clan members Category:Horrorcore artists

be:Method Man cs:Method Man da:Method Man de:Method Man et:Method Man es:Method Man fr:Method Man fy:Method Man ko:메소드 맨 id:Method Man it:Method Man he:מת'וד מן sw:Method Man hu:Method Man nl:Method Man ja:メソッド・マン no:Method Man pl:Method Man pt:Method Man ru:Method Man sl:Method Man sr:Method Man fi:Method Man sv:Method Man tr:Method Man uk:Method Man

Name	Zakk Wylde
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Jeffrey Phillip Wielandt
Alias	Ghode, The Ghost of Rock Past, The Idol
Birth date	January 14, 1967
Birth place	Bayonne, New Jersey, U.S.
Instrument	Guitar, vocals, bass, banjo, piano, keyboards, mandolin, harmonica, organ, mellotron
Genre	Heavy metal, southern metal, groove metal, southern rock
Occupation	Musician, songwriter, actor, producer
Years active	1987–present
Label	Geffen, Spitfire, InsideOut Music, Artemis, Roadrunner, Epic, Sony
Associated acts	Ozzy Osbourne, Black Label Society, Pride & Glory, Steel Dragon, Britny Fox
Website	zakkwylde.com
Notable instruments	Zakk Wylde Signature Les Paul,Zakk Wylde Signature Gibson Flying V }}

Zachary Phillip "Zakk" Wylde (born Jeffrey Phillip Wielandt, January 14, 1967), is an American musician, songwriter, and occasional actor who is best known as the former guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne and founder of the heavy metal band Black Label Society. He was the lead guitarist and vocalist in Pride & Glory, who released one self-titled album in 1994 before disbanding. As a solo artist he released ''Book of Shadows'' in 1996.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Wylde was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. Wylde started playing the guitar at the age of 14 and worked at Silverton Music in Silverton, New Jersey. He grew up in Jackson, New Jersey, and went to Jackson Memorial High School, where he graduated in 1985. Wylde has stated that he would practice playing the guitar as much as 12 hours per day and would often play the guitar almost non-stop between coming home from school and leaving for school the next morning, then sleeping through the school day.

Music career[link]

Wylde played locally with his first band Stone Henge, then later with local Jersey band Zyris. Later, he landed the role as lead guitarist and co-writer for Ozzy Osbourne. He sent Ozzy a demo tape in 1987 and was hired to replace Jake E. Lee, who had replaced the deceased Randy Rhoads. Rhoads remains Wylde's foremost guitar-playing and stagecraft influence.

Wylde gravitated toward a particular Les Paul guitar, which has become known as "The Grail"; his infamous bullseye-painted Gibson Les Paul custom. Wylde lost the guitar after it fell from the back of a truck transporting equipment as he was travelling between gigs in Texas. Rewards were offered to anyone that had information about the guitar. Wylde and The Grail were reunited years later when a fan bought it at a Dallas pawn shop and saw the initials "Z.W." carved into the humbucker pickups backs. He contacted Wylde's former webmaster Randy Canis to arrange its return to Wylde. He bartered for it, in exchange for two other Les Pauls.

Osbourne has maintained a flexible attitude with regard to his backing band, leaving his band members free to leave as they wish, but Wylde has remained faithful to Osbourne. Wylde was replaced in Osbourne's band by Joe Holmes from 1995 until his return in 2001. On January 17, 2006, Zakk Wylde was recognized at the Hollywood Rock Walk of Fame, featuring his handprints and signature, in recognition of his successful career as a musician and his contribution to the music industry. The event was open to the public and many rock celebrities were present, including Ozzy Osbourne.

After auditions in 2005/2006, Ozzy Osbourne announced Wylde as the official guitarist for his upcoming album, ''Black Rain'', which was released in 2007. On stage with Osbourne, Wylde has been credited for lending a high level of energy and passion to performances. Black Label Society's album ''Shot To Hell'', was released on September 11, 2006 in the UK, and September 12, 2006 in the U.S. through Roadrunner records, with production by Michael Beinhorn. Black Label Society headlined the second stage at the 2006 Ozzfest, with Wylde playing double duty with Ozzy on certain dates. Ozzy Osbourne's album Black Rain, was released in May 2007.

Black Label Society released 'The Song Remains Not the Same' on May 10, 2011 on E1. Wylde also played a guitar solo on Black Veil Brides cover of Kiss' "Unholy," on the band's Rebels EP released in December 2011.

Personal life[link]

Wylde lives with his wife, Barbaranne, and his three children: Hayley Rae, Hendrix, and Jesse—who is godson to Ozzy Osbourne. Wylde was a close friend of Darrell "Dimebag" Abbott before he was murdered in 2004. As of 2011, he is in partnership with Blair's Sauces and Snacks to produce "Berserker" Hot Sauce and several variations. Wylde is Irish Catholic and has spoken about his faith, calling himself as a "soldier of Christ". Wylde's health has come under scrutiny for several years. Wylde was asked by Sharon Osbourne to attend rehab, but left early on. In August 2009, Wylde was hospitalized due to blood clots. He was forced to cancel his tour with Mudvayne and Static-X due to an embolism.

Equipment[link]

He is known for his use of Gibson Les Paul Custom model guitars with a "bulls-eye" graphic on them, a design he used to differentiate himself visually from Randy Rhoads - who was also frequently identified by his white Les Paul Custom. The "bulls-eye" paint job was originally supposed to look like the spiral from the movie ''Vertigo'', but when it came back incorrect from the luthier, he liked the result and stuck with it. He was sometimes criticized by viewers and media for taking the idea of the "bulls-eye" from Eddie Ojeda from Twisted Sister, however, both Eddie and Zakk deny it and suppose it to be coincidence. One of Wylde's favorite stage guitars is a replica of Rhoads' Flying V, with the colours inverted (i.e. White with black dots).

Wylde's signature Les Pauls include a red flame-maple bulls-eye model, a black and antique-white bulls-eye model, an orange "buzz-saw" model, the pattern on which was inspired by a design on a Zippo lighter, and a "camo" bulls-eye model with mother of pearl neck inlays and a green camouflage paint scheme. His original bulls-eye Les Paul was purchased from one of the owners of Metaltronics Amplification. Metaltronics was building a one-off live rig for Wylde that was designed around one of the owner's guitars, a creamy white Les Paul Custom with EMG pickups, which would later become known as "The Grail". Wylde has a custom Dean Splittail with a mud splatter bulls-eye graphic, as well as a signature Splittail shaped Gibson model called the "ZV". Another Dean in his collection is a Dime series Razorback with custom Bulls-eye graphics ordered for him specially by Dimebag Darrell shortly before his death; since receiving the guitar, he has only ever used it on stage to play "In This River," Zakk's personal tribute to Dimebag.

In practice, Wylde uses Marshall MG Series practice combos ranging in wattage levels from 10-30W during tour/private use especially in hotels and buses. Wylde has an extensive relationship with Marshall Amplification due to his love for their amplifiers, both solid state and valve powered. Live, Wylde exclusively uses Marshall JCM 800's with twin 4 X 12 Cabinets loaded with EVM12L 300W Black Label Speakers. His usual signal path consists of his guitar > (on stage pedal board) Dunlop Wylde Wah > Dunlop Rotovibe > MXR EVH Phase 90 (soon to be replaced by the new MXR Wylde Phase) > MXR Wylde Overdrive > MXR Carbon Copy Delay Delay > (to a back stage pedal board) > MXR EVH Flanger > MXR Black Label Chorus > split signals, one to each distorted amp into the High Gain input.

Media appearances[link]

Music[link]

Wylde has made guest appearances on various albums by other artists:

He appears as guest vocalist and guitarist on the tracks "Soul Bleed" and "Reborn" on Damageplan's debut album, ''New Found Power''.

He played guitar solos on Dope's single "Addiction" from their newest album, ''No Regrets''.

He plays a solo on Fozzy's 2005 release "All That Remains" on the song, Wanderlust.

He has also worked on five of Derek Sherinian's solo albums: ''Inertia'', ''Black Utopia'', ''Mythology'', ''Blood of the Snake'' and ''Molecular Heinosity'' alongside Yngwie Malmsteen and others.

Wylde was also a judge for the 8th annual Independent Music Awards. His contributions helped assist independent artists' careers. In 2010 he played lead guitar on My Darkest Days first single "Porn Star Dancing", along with guest singers Chad Kroeger and Ludacris.

In 1993 Ozzy Osbournes double album Live and Loud was released. Wylde is the guitarist.

In 2011 he featured in Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed's new project, "Jasta" in the song "The Fearless must Endure".

He plays the guitar solo on Black Veil Brides cover of the Kiss song "Unholy" on their EP, ''Rebels''.

Live performances[link]

On August 1, 1993, at Great Woods Amphitheatre in Mansfield, MA, Wylde appeared on stage with the Allman Brothers on lead guitar since Dickey Betts was unable to make the show, and they needed a guitarist at the last minute. This show is documented on the bootleg "Zakk Goes Wylde".

Wylde is a New York Yankees fan. He performed the National Anthem on the electric guitar during a New York Rangers game in October 2005. He has also played the anthem at Los Angeles Kings and Dodgers games. A video of a Kings performance is included as an extra feature, on the DVD ''Boozed, Broozed, and Broken-Boned''.

On February 1, 2007 Wylde and Nick Catanese began a tour of acoustic shows at the Hard Rock Cafe in various cities across North America. Although Catanese had to leave mid-tour due to unspecified personal reasons, Wylde continued to play shows alone. He performed several songs, on both the acoustic guitar and keyboard. The tour was eventually canceled due to unspecified reasons.

On April 13, 2011 he was the guitarist for James Durbin on American Idol, during Durbin's performance of "Heavy Metal", by Sammy Hagar.

On May 14, 2011 he performed the National Anthem at Rockfest in Kansas City, Missouri.

Wylde appeared on stage December 8, 2011 in Indianapolis, IN, to play a cover of AC/DC's "Whole Lotta Rosie" with Guns N' Roses while Black Label Society opened for Guns N' Roses during a leg of the US Tour. Wylde also did this on subsequent shows before BLS finished their run on the tour.

Film and television[link]

On June 5, 2011, he appeared on ''Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'' and performed with ''The Roots''

Wylde's film credits include ''Rock Star'' (As "Ghode", guitarist of the fictitious band Steel Dragon)

Wylde also appeared on the TV show ''Angel'' in the season four episode "The Magic Bullet" where he plays acoustic on the song "Mandy" while Angel and Conner sing along.

Wylde has also appeared as a guest star on the TV show ''Aqua Teen Hunger Force''. In it, he plays guitar on a track produced by Master Shake that is supposed to become the next big birthday song, which is called "Spirit Journey Formation Anniversary." Wylde becomes irate when he finds out that Shake cannot pay him for his input on the project. Later in the show, Wylde is killed when caught between the crossfire of two robotic banjo-playing scorpions.

On September 26, 2003, Wylde appeared on ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' and sat in with the house band. During the course of the night he repeatedly made fun of and threatened to beat up Fred Durst, the front man for Limp Bizkit.

On January 30, 2007, Wylde, alongside Black Label Society, were the musical guests for MTV's Wrestling Society X debut episode. He worked the night as a guest commentator as well.

On February 2, 2007, Wylde guest hosted on Seattle's 99.9 KISW on the afternoon program ''The Men's Room''.

On the May 18 edition of ''WWE Smackdown!'', Wylde appeared with Ozzy Osbourne to perform the song "I Don't Wanna Stop", at the First Mariner Arena in Baltimore, Maryland.

Wylde performed alongside Osbourne on the 2007 ''VH1 Rock Honors'' broadcast.

On October 18, 2009, Zakk Wylde performed the National Anthem on Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's biggest PPV, Bound for Glory, before the matches officially started.

He appears as a guest in ''Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage''.

He appears in the Pantera episode of ''Behind the Music''.

He appears as a music store worker in a scene from the TV show Californication on Showtime, Season 4 Episode 2.t

He was on tour with Black Label Society in 2010 on the Ozzfest Tour that also had Ozzy and Mötley Crüe, among many others.

He performed "Heavy Metal" by Sammy Hagar with James Durbin during season 10 of American Idol.

Video games[link]

Wylde recorded a guitar duel for the video game ''Guitar Hero: World Tour''. He also appears as a playable character performing the songs Stillborn and, along with Ozzy Osbourne, Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley.

Some of Wylde's signature guitars have been for sale to play with throughout the ''Guitar Hero'' series. These include "The Grail", "The Camo Grail", and "The Buzzsaw".

Wylde was featured in the first Guitar Hero with the studio version recording of Fire it Up.

He was the guitarist in the remix of "Bring The Noise" called "Bring The Noise 20XX" that appeared in Guitar Hero 5 as a playable track

Discography[link]

;With Black Label Society

1999: ''Sonic Brew''

2000: ''Stronger Than Death''

2001: ''Alcohol Fueled Brewtality Live!! +5''

2002: ''1919 Eternal''

2003: ''The Blessed Hellride''

2004: ''Hangover Music Vol. VI''

2005: ''Mafia''

2006: ''Shot to Hell''

2009: ''Skullage''

2010: ''Order of the Black''

2011: ''The Song Remains Not The Same''

;With Ozzy Osbourne

1988: ''No Rest For The Wicked''

1990: ''Just Say Ozzy (live album)''

1991: ''No More Tears''

1993: ''Live & Loud (live album)''

1995: ''Ozzmosis''

2001: ''Down to Earth''

2002: ''Live At Budokan (live album)''

2007: ''Black Rain''

;Pride & Glory

1994: ''Pride & Glory''

;Solo

1996: ''Book of Shadows''

References[link]

External links[link]

Black Label Society official website

Zakk Wylde Video Workshop (Videos in engl.) Source: Bonedo.de

Zakk Wylde Interview Source: Bonedo.de

Source: Alternative Press

Category:1967 births Category:Living people Category:American heavy metal guitarists Category:The Ozzy Osbourne Band members Category:People from Bayonne, New Jersey Category:People from Jackson Township, New Jersey Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American Roman Catholics Category:Lead guitarists Category:Musicians from New Jersey Category:American musicians of Irish descent

bg:Зак Уайлд cs:Zakk Wylde da:Zakk Wylde de:Zakk Wylde et:Zakk Wylde es:Zakk Wylde fa:زک وایلد fr:Zakk Wylde it:Zakk Wylde hu:Zakk Wylde nl:Zakk Wylde ja:ザック・ワイルド no:Zakk Wylde pl:Zakk Wylde pt:Zakk Wylde ru:Зак Вайлд sk:Zakk Wylde fi:Zakk Wylde sv:Zakk Wylde tr:Zakk Wylde uk:Закк Вайлд

Name	Aaron Lewis
Landscape	Yes
Background	solo_singer
Birth date	April 13, 1972
Birth place	Rutland, Vermont
Origin	Longmeadow, Massachusetts,United States
Instrument	Vocals, guitar
Genre	Alternative metal, nu metal, post-grunge, country
Occupation	Musician, songwriter
Years active	1990–present
Label	Flip, Elektra, Atlantic, Stroudavarious, R&J;, Blaster
Associated acts	Staind
Website	}}

Aaron Lewis, (born April 13, 1972), is the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and founding member of the rock group Staind, with whom he has released seven studio albums. He has since ventured into country music with his debut solo album, ''Town Line''. The EP was released on March 1, 2011 on Stroudavarious Records. Lewis' first full-length solo release, ''The Road'', will be released by Blaster Records on August 14, 2012.

Early life[link]

Lewis grew up, largely, in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, then moved to the Forest Park section of nearby Springfield from 8th grade through high school. His mother is Jewish with origins in Russia, Poland and Germany and his father is Catholic of Italian, Welsh and English origin. His hobbies include fishing, playing golf, riding his motorcycle and dirt bike, as well as hunting. He has worked in landscaping, cleaned hotel rooms, and played solo acoustic sets in bars, pool halls, restaurants and coffeehouses.

Career[link]

Lewis was, before Staind, in a band known as J-CAT with Tori Sands, Chris Ballini, and former Staind bandmate Jon Wysocki. An album surfaced on the internet with nine of J-CAT's performances at Club Infinity in Springfield, Massachusetts. The performances were recorded while ''Dysfunction'' was being recorded. Two of Staind's popular singles—"Outside" and "It's Been Awhile"—were both originally performed by J-CAT with somewhat different lyrics.

Solo career[link]

Lewis has been performing solo acoustic shows since he was 17 and still does today. He has written and performed many songs that have never been officially released such as "Angel", "Something Like Me", "Bonghits for Breakfast" (originally performed with J-CAT), "Anywhere but Here", and "Sleeping at the Wheel".

In July 2010, Lewis finished recording a country music EP entitled ''Town Line'' that was released March 1, 2011 on Stroudavarious Records. It features 7 tracks including 3 versions of the first single "Country Boy" featuring George Jones, Charlie Daniels, and Chris Young, as well as the songs "Massachusetts", "Vicious Circles", "The Story Never Ends", and a re-recording of "Tangled Up in You" originally from ''The Illusion of Progress''. Lewis said in a July 2011 interview that he was introduced to country music as a child by his grandfather, but his interest was recently rekindled when he toured with Kid Rock.

Collaborations[link]

He was featured on the song "No Sex" by Limp Bizkit on their album ''Significant Other''. He was also featured on a remix for the song "Crawling" on Linkin Park's album ''Reanimation'' (the remix is titled "Krwlng" on the album), as well as Cold's album ''13 Ways to Bleed on Stage''. He contributed vocals to the song "Follow" on Sevendust's third album, ''Animosity'', and to the songs "Bleed" and "Send in the Clowns" by the band Cold. He's also featured on Jimmie's Chicken Shack's song "Falling Out", the only single off their 2004 album ''re.present''. July 2011 while promoting his Town Line album Lewis collaborated with Corey Taylor for a one night only acoustic duet show covering songs such as, Pearl Jam's "Black", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", and Alice In Chains' "Down In A Hole."

Equipment[link]

1950 Gibson Acoustic J-45

1951 Gibson Acoustic Southern Jumbo

1936 Gibson Acoustic Jumbo J-35

1956 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top

1968 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top

1980's Gibson Heritage Series Les Pauls (At least 5)

Personal life[link]

He is married to Vanessa Lewis and has three daughters, Zoe Jane, Nyla Rae and Indie Shay. Aaron also has two sisters, Evyette and Rachel, as well as a brother, Jesse.

Aaron Lewis is a registered Republican. He is a constitutional conservative and opposes high taxes, but supports marijuana use. His views were expressed in the song "Country Boy".

In a five minute interview with Outdoor Life magazine Aaron Lewis shared that he has been hunting whitetail deer since he was old enough to keep up in the woods, probably age 4 or 5. His preferred method of hunting deer is with a compound or recurve bow, and occasionally utilizes a muzzleloader.

Philanthropy[link]

On November 4, 2006, Aaron performed at his old high school in Longmeadow, Massachusetts and gave all the proceeds to the music department to fund the department's expenses to buy new equipment and supplies. Lewis' main focus, however, is the nonprofit organization, It Takes a Community, where he and his wife have started to reopen their daughters' elementary school in Worthington, Massachusetts. Lewis also drives an American GM.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Title	Album details
''The Road''		* To be released: August 14, 2012	* Label: Blaster Records	* Formats: Extended plays[link] Title EP details Peak chart positions ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ''[[Town Line">Compact Disc Extended plays[link] Title EP details Peak chart positions ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ''[[Town Line'' * Release date: March 1, 2011 * Label: Stroudavarious Records * Formats: Singles[link] Year Song Peak chart positions ! rowspan="2" style="width:8em;" Album ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" 2000 56 31 2 1 — — 2011 87 — — 23 50 39 US">Compact Disc 7 1 3 3 Singles[link] Year Song Peak chart positions ! rowspan="2" style="width:8em;" Album ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" ! style="width:40px;" 2000 56 31 2 1 — — 2011 87 — — 23 50 39 US: Gold 2012 53 ACurrent single. Music videos[link] ! Year ! Song ! Director 2010 "Country Boy" (with George Jones and Charlie Daniels) Alex Castino 2012 "Endless Summer" (live) Jim Wright Awards and nominations[link] ! Year ! Association ! Category ! Result USA Weekend Breakthrough Video of the Year - "Country Boy" Collaborative Video of the Year - "Country Boy" (with George Jones and Charlie Daniels) References[link] The Darkness Within by Jenny Eliscu, Rolling Stone, July 19, 2001 (In depth interview, includes birthplace) External links[link] Official website Official Staind website ADDICTEDtoStAiND Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:American heavy metal guitarists Category:American heavy metal singers Category:American male singers Category:American rock singer-songwriters Category:Nu metal singers Category:Musicians from Vermont Category:Jewish American musicians Category:American people of English descent Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:American musicians of German descent Category:American musicians of Russian descent Category:American musicians of Polish descent Category:People from Rutland County, Vermont Category:People from Springfield, Massachusetts Category:American country singers Category:R&J; Records artists de:Aaron Lewis es:Aaron Lewis fr:Aaron Lewis it:Aaron Lewis he:ארון לואיס pl:Aaron Lewis pt:Aaron Lewis ru:Льюис, Аарон fi:Aaron Lewis This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community. http://wn.com/Aaron_Lewis 6:16 Aaron Lewis and Fred Durst divazoe04 Aaron Lewis and Fred Durst CPR FEST 7/10/2010 Biloxi, Mississippi 5:08 Staind feat Fred Durst - Outside live at {Family Valious 1999} HD StaindChannel Staind feat Fred Durst - Outside live at {Family Valious 1999} HD Staind feat Fred Durst - Outside live at {Family Valious 1999} HD 1:09 Fred Durst on Tom Green's House Tonight! tomgreendotcom Fred Durst on Tom Green's House Tonight! Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst stops by The Channel to hang out with Tom and update the fans about the world of Limp Bizkit! 5:21 Staind ft. Fred Durst- Outside seanrodgerss14 Staind ft. Fred Durst- Outside Staind and Fred Furst of the bank limp bizkit, In the video to outside! 0:00 Limp Bizkit The Fuck Song ivarskum Limp Bizkit The Fuck Song Limp Bizkit´s song The Fuck Song from the album choclate starfish and hotdog flavour water. 4:31 Hard Target x Fred Durst - The Hit Factory Recording Session hardtarget Hard Target x Fred Durst - The Hit Factory Recording Session FOLLOW ME www.facebook.com www.twitter.com www.hardtargetmusic.com FOLLOW FRED DURST http show more add to playlist clear Video Suggestions Youtube Vimeo Dailymotion Yahoo Blip The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters. 1. Personal Information Collection and Use We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. 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