The masterpiece that killed George Orwell

Close to death and beset by creative demons: the story of the author's feverish race to finish the book. In 1946 Observer editor David Astor lent George Orwell a remote Scottish farmhouse in which to write his book, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Writing in the Guardian, Robert McCrum, tells the compelling story of Orwell's torturous stay on the island, the author wrote what went on to become one of the most significant novels of the 20th century.