George Orwell left post-war London for Barnhill, a remote farmhouse
on the Isle of Jura, to write what became Nineteen Eighty-Four. He was
driven by a passionate desire to undermine the enemies of democracy and
make plain the dangers of dictatorship, surveillance, doublethink, and
censorship. Typing away in his damp bedroom overlooking the garden he
created and the sea beyond, he invented Big Brother, Thought Police,
Newspeak, and Room 101--and created a masterpiece. Barnhill tells the
dramatic story of this crucial period of Orwell's life. Deeply
researched, it reveals the private man behind the celebrated public
figure--his turbulent love life, his devotion to his baby son and his
declining health as he struggled to deliver his dystopian warning to the
world.