1903 (25 June) Eric Arthur Blair born to Richard Walmesley Blair and Ida Mabel Blair (née Limouzin) in Motihari, in modern Bihar, where Richard Blair works in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service.
1904 Ida Blair returns to England with Eric and his elder sister, Marjorie (b. 1898), and settles at Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
1908 (April) Eric’s younger sister, Avril, is born.
1911 Goes as a boarder to St Cyprian’s, a private preparatory school near Eastbourne, Sussex.
1912 On Richard Blair’s retirement, the family moves to the village of Shiplake, Oxfordshire.
1917 Goes to Eton College as a King’s Scholar.
1921 Leaves Eton. Richard and Ida Blair move to Southwold, on the Suffolk coast.
1922 Joins the Indian Imperial Police and serves in Burma for five years.
1927 Returns to England and resigns from his position in the Indian Imperial Police.
1927–9 Spends periods as a casual manual labourer and living as a tramp in London and Paris.
1930 Begins to write the book that becomes Down and Out in Paris and London.
1932 Engages Leonard Moore as his literary agent. After several rejections, Down and Out in Paris and London is accepted by Victor Gollancz. Decides to use a pseudonym and selects ‘George Orwell’.
1932–3 Teaches at boys’ private schools in Middlesex.
1933 ( January) Down and Out in Paris and London published by Gollancz.
1934 Lives in Southwold with his parents. (October) Burmese Days published in New York by Harper & Brothers (published by Gollancz in the UK in 1935).
1934–6 Works part-time at Booklovers’ Corner, a bookshop in Hampstead.
1935 (March) A Clergyman’s Daughter published by Gollancz.
1936 (February–March) Spends two months visiting the north of England. (April) Keep the Aspidistra Flying published by Gollancz; moves to The Stores (a small village general shop) at Wallington, Hertfordshire. ( June) Marries Eileen O’Shaughnessy. (December) Goes to Spain to fight on the Republican side in the Civil War.
1937 (March) The Road to Wigan Pier published by Gollancz. (May) Wounded in the throat. ( July) Returns to England.
1938 (April) Homage to Catalonia published by Secker & Warburg (after rejection by Gollancz).
1938–9 Recovers from tuberculosis in Morocco, where he writes Coming Up for Air.
1939 (March) Returns to England. ( June) Coming Up for Air published by Gollancz; Richard Blair dies.
1940 (March) Inside the Whale and Other Essays published by Gollancz. (May) Turned down for military service on health grounds; enrols in the Home Guard.
1941 (February) The Lion and the Unicorn published by Gollancz.
1941–3 Works as a talks producer in the Indian Section of the BBC Eastern Service.
1943 (March) Ada Blair dies.
1943–4 (November–February) Writes Animal Farm.
1943–5 Works as literary editor of Tribune, a left-wing weekly.
1944 ( June) Adopts a son, Richard Horatio Blair.
1945 (February–March) Goes to Europe as a war correspondent. (March) Eileen Blair dies. (August) After many rejections, Animal Farm published by Secker & Warburg.
1946 (February) Critical Essays published by Secker & Warburg. (May–October) Lives on the Isle of Jura, writing what becomes Nineteen Eighty-Four.
1947 (April–December) Returns to Jura. (November) Completes the first draft of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
1948 ( July–December) Again living on Jura; revises Nineteen Eighty-Four; becomes increasingly ill with tuberculosis. (December) Sends off the completed typescript of Nineteen Eighty-Four to Secker & Warburg.
1949 ( January–September) Largely confined to a sanatorium in Gloucestershire. ( June) Nineteen Eighty-Four published by Secker & Warburg; plans a further book, consisting of reprinted essays. (September) Transferred to University College Hospital, London. (October) Marries Sonia Brownell.
1950 (21 January) Dies, aged 46, after a lung haemorrhage. (October) Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays published by Secker & Warburg.