This biography of George Orwell draws on a range of sources including letters concerning his romantic attachments to other boys at Eton, records which alter the conventional view of his military service, a detailed set of medical records and 200 letters and scripts discovered in 1984. Also included are sections from a copy of Down and Out in Paris and London with handwritten annotations by Orwell indicating how much of the book is based on real events. Michael Shelden is the author of Friends of Promise: Cyril Connolly and the World of Horizon.