On this day in 1936, writer George Orwell delivers his
manuscript for his book The Road to Wigan Pier, which chronicles
the difficult life of the unemployed in northern England. Then
he promptly sets off for the civil war in Spain. George Orwell
was the nom de plume for Eric Blair, who was born in India. The
son of a British civil servant, Orwell attended school in London
and won a scholarship to the elite prep school Eton, where most
students came from wealthy upper-class backgrounds, unlike
Orwell. Rather than going to college like most of his
classmates, Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police and went to
work in Burma in 1922. During his five years there, he developed
a severe sense of class guilt, until, in 1927, he elected not to
return to Burma while in England on a holiday. Orwell, choosing
to immerse himself in the experiences of the urban poor, went to
Paris, where he worked menial jobs, and later spent time in
England as a tramp. He wrote Down and Out in Paris and London in
1933, based on his obse