How Eric Blair Became George Orwell
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LFA | 2025-09-28 | #books #literature #diaries #orwell
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The intro in The Orwell Diaries for The Diary 31 January 1936 -
25 March 1936 (page 24) starts with the following paragraph:

"After Orwell had completed several drafts of what would become
Down and Out in Paris and London, and had changed the order of
events (originally, those in London preceded his Parisian
experiences), the book was rejected by Jonathan Cape and by
T.S. Eliot on behalf of Faber & Faber (just as later on both would
reject Animal Farm). Orwell then gave up. However, a friend, Mrs
Sinclair Fierz, sent the typescript to the man who would become
Orwell's literary agent, Leonard Moore of Christy & Moore. Moore
persuaded Victor Gollancz to publish it. Orwell wished to publish
anonymously, first because he thought his low-life slumming might
upset his parents, and secondly because, as he told his friend, Sir
Richard Rees (an editor of The Adelphi for which he wrote), he had
a curious fear  — a superstition — that if one's real name appeared
in print it might enable an enemy to 'work some kind of magic on it'.
However, Gollancz was keen to have a name and eventually Orwell
suggested, among several others, George Orwell. He would still be
Eric Blair in some contexts and to old friends, but his writing
thereafter, except for some at the BBC, was under the name 'George
Orwell'. On 9 January 1933, Down and Out in London and Paris was
published by Gollancz and, six months later, in New York."

From the excerpt above we learn two things, first that T.S. Eliot
was a dick and second the how and why  Eric Blair became
George Orwell.