Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author. His work is marked by a profound consciousness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary 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," he wrote works in many different genres including novels, essays, polemic journalism, semi-sociological literary criticism, and poetry. His most famous works are the satirical novel Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), widely considered to be his magnum opus. Also widely acclaimed are Homage to Catalonia (1938), a personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War, and his numerous essays. Orwell's influence on popular and political culture remains apparant, with numerous of his literary concepts, and the term "Orwellian" entering the popular vernacular.

Eric Arthur Blair was born on 25 June 1903 in Motihari, Bihar, Bengal Presidency, British India. His great-grandfather Charles Blair had been a wealthy plantation owner in Jamaica and his grandfather, Thomas Richard Arthur Blair, 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 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, Ida Blair took him to England.