This, the first biography to draw on a close study of the new "Complete Works", sheds a new light on this extraordinary literary figure through interviews with family and friends, and research into material in the Orwell archive. It also includes previously unpublished photographs. A child of the waning British empire, Orwell came to reject the class system and through his writing forged a new social consciousness that continues to engage modern intellectual thought. Meyers reveals the human failings of this creative visionary and offers a dark - but nuanced - portrait of the legendary figure.