I first became a fan of George Orwell in 1985, after reading The Road to Wigan Pier in a college socialism class. I had read Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm before, the latter in high school and the former earlier (a paperback copy of my parents' from the fifties with a lurid cover). I had read some essays of his, too. But Wigan struck me as something different, a wonderful piece of reportage written straightforwardly. I was thrilled by his firsthand accounts of life among coal miners in northern England. It was not until later when I reread his other works when I began to enjoy them, too.
Over the years I have read all of Orwell's published works and appreciate him for his prose style, his understanding of totalitarian thought, his love of tea, and his explorations of English life. After the September 11th attacks, his writings about the "objectively pro-fascist" nature of pacifism and the nationalism-transferrence of intellectuals have resonated with me as they never did when I first read them.
About three years ago, I began to incorporate side trips to photograph places significant in Orwell's life into my vacations. This website is the result. Posted here are pictures of London and of his gravesite that were taken in 1999. I also have pictures from Barcelona and eastern Spain which will be posted when I get some more time to work on the site.
All of the pictures here were taken with my camera, and I hold the copyright on all of them. Feel free to reproduce them on other sites; all I ask is that you credit me, Andy MacDonald, as the copyright holder, and make a link back to www.zardoz.net. Please send me questions or comments.
London Photos These are from a trip a friend and I made in April, 1999. We spent a week in London, and half that time was devoted to photographing places Orwell lived, worked and ate.
Gravesite Orwell is buried in the parish church in the small Oxfordshire town of Sutton Courtenay. I visited with a friend in April, 1999 and took these photos of his gravesite and the church.
Raw Photos These are the full size photos from the camera. Most are 1280x960 pixels, rather large to download but good if you want to see the full details of an image. They also work well as desktop wallpaper.
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